Cheshire Jets summer camp still flying high

Cheshire Jets this week have been holding their annual summer basketball camp at Whitby High School in Ellesmere Port.

Every year, the camp attracts both young players and coaches from around the UK, and even abroad, to spend just under a week training at one of the country’s most highly regarded basketball camps.

This year again an increase in numbers of those attending means it is close to 200 participants. For a camp that has been run for over a quarter of a century, and during an Olympic year which is being held on this very small island we call Great Britain, the appetite for learning the game in such a professional set-up is still there.

Camp director, Mark Whitehead, feels that once someone experiences the camp, the campers themselves spread the word: “I think part of it is that they have such a good time, they go back, tell their friends and their friends come. I think we’ve always been good at getting juniors in. I was able to involve Deutsche Bank, who I work for, to get ten kids on to the camp, scholarships as such for local kids in this area, but we’ve always done well in getting junior campers through the doors.”

Despite many of the economic worries in recent times, Whitehead, whose son is attending his first full week camp this year “We all feared over the past few years that the economic situation might take the numbers down, losing maybe about 50-60 campers on average, but even through the leaner times, we’ve had numbers in the 170s, 180s. The camp isn’t free, it’s a non-trivial amount of money. Of course, we get kids whose parents politely want to give them something to do for the week, but the majority you see here are here because they want to be.”

Spending the afternoon at the camp, you can clearly see why. Effort from all of the campers is evident, from the juniors and the intermediates I was able to see, and even in past years when I have attended seeing the level of intensity at the senior level too.

There is one major draw that many attend the camp for, and after attending just one week, the bug of what is on offer, can be a severe bite for those wanting to play serious basketball; an all expenses paid trip to a five-star basketball camp the following year in Pittsburgh.

The experience, knowledge and skills that are picked up by the campers, together with the opportunity on offer by becoming the camp MVP, are seen as life changing by many, as seen by those returning who are desperate to win that chance. Explaining just what it means to be a part of the camp and how instrumental it can be to set a player on their way towards a career, Whitehead said: “I started basketball quite late, 13 or 14, I’ve been to a lot of summer camps coaching, but I’ve always felt that this is the best teaching camp in the country. It helps that we have the best prize if you’re a kid; the trip can change people’s lives.”

“It doesn’t take phone calls to catch coaches when they are in their offices, but if they email over again, for instance one of our past MVPs, Josh McGinn who is coaching here this year, spoke yesterday and said he sent over 1,400 emails to college coaches until he got a place. Ultimately, despite landing it, it didn’t come through because of injury but now there’s a lot more opportunity, especially over in the USA where coaches appreciate that there’s a lot of talent in Europe. On one hand kids find it easier to approach coaches in the US, but on the other hand US organisations are appreciative of the talent in Europe and are actively reaching out,” continued Whitehead, who is sure enough too that there are stars of the future attending this year’s camp.

“For me, with it being the first year that my son has been here properly, and that’s meant I can’t do all the jobs that I used to do. It’s forced me to just be director of the camp, and be a dad, but I’ve had more time to look at the games and the coaching of the juniors and intermediates. I think the general enjoyment of the kids has been fantastic. I’ve seen tough games in all of the divisions. It used to be just great games in the seniors, and then bees buzzing around a queen, as such, in the juniors and then the intermediates was somewhere in between.

“However this year it’s been a lot closer. I’ve just seen a game between the intermediates where it was a nail biter and one of the younger kids in the intermediates hit a three-pointer on the buzzer to win the game. At first I didn’t want to give up all my other roles here, but because I have, I’ve been able to see all the other activities here much more closely, I’ve seen just how much the kids are receiving from their coaches across the week, and it has to have been one of the best weeks in a good few years that we’ve ran the camp.”

And for Whitehead, that’s saying something, as by his own admission: “I realised earlier that I’ve been coaching at this camp more years than the oldest camper here alive – it made me feel very old indeed!”

With that said, the continued success seen with the attendance increasing year on year, through the efforts not just of Whitehead, but of all the other coaches and volunteers as well as the Cheshire Jets organisation, shows that basketball beats a very loud drum within the North West.