Southeastern Oklahoma State University basketball hosted Savage Storm basketball camps last week and the week before for grades K-8 at Bloomer Sullivan Arena with SE men’s head coach Kelly Green and SE women’s head coach Darin Grover.
Grover said the morning camps were for kindergarten through third grade and in the afternoon, the camps were for grades 4-8. The camps were Monday through Thursday.
Last week, more than 80 children attended the afternoon camp, and the morning camp had approximately 35 children, according to Grover.
“Men and women’s basketball at Southeastern does them together,” Grover said. “So, myself and coach Kelly Green and our staffs do them together. So, they’re basically the same camp.”
Grover led the camps last week, and Green did the week before. They are different camps, but some children came back for the second camp, according to Grover.
Children learn basic skills in the camps. “With a young, young group, with the k through third, a lot of them, it’s their first introduction to basketball or at least a structured basketball,” Grover said. “So, you’re just trying to hopefully get them where they at least like the game, if not love the game and then we just try to build up their skills and all the way up to the older kids, we’re just trying to work on their skills and then we play games so that they have fun and then right there, we’re playing five on five, so that they can have fun just actually playing the game of basketball and of course, that’s what they love the most is getting to play.”
Some of the children who were in the camps in the past later became Savage Storm basketball players, according to Grover.
“This is my 21st year here, so there are kids that have played in our camp that I have coached here at Southeastern,” Grover said. “Anytime that you can get any local kids, that’s a great thing. There are a lot of kids through Bryan County that I’ve had come through these camps over the past two decades.”
Grover said these were the final camps for this year, but there will be more next year.
“We’d love people when we start advertising for camps next year, we’d love for them to come out and come to camp,” Grover said.
