The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

DESIGNED specifically to take advantage of the late summer months, Nekeno Demeritte’s fifth annual Scholastic Basketball Camp is now in high gear at the Temple Christian Academy Basketball Gymnasium and has attracted more than 50 boys and girls.

The month-long camp, which started on July 27, is slated to wrap up on August 21 with coaches Candice Smith and Yves Pierre as well as former products of Demeritte - Tre Carey and Rumalo Ellis - all on hand to lend their assistance during the sessions that run from 8:30am to 1pm.

“The camp has been going really well. We’ve seen a lot of improvement in the skills of a lot of the kids who came in, not knowing anything about basketball,” said Demeritte, who coaches some of the players at Temple Christian. “We’ve seen their dribbling, ball passing and shooting skills improve tremendously.”

The campers are not just taught the basic skills of the game, but how to cope with the game of life.

“We let them know about things about the bible with our devotions as we teach them how to live their lives,” Demeritte said. “So it’s a well-rounded camp. And we do it right before school opens because we believe that coming here, the kids are more sharper going back to school and there won’t be too much fine tuning once they go back to school.”

Over the first three weeks, Demeritte said they have had some very positive responses from the campers, who are all eager to learn as much as they can.

One of those campers, Zenika Lightbourne - a 10-year-old student of Temple Christian Academy - is making her debut in the camp.

“It’s really good,” said Lightbourne, who will be entering the sixth grade and looking forward to playing on the Suns’ primary girls basketball team this year. “I’ve learned how to shoot the ball and play defence.”

And Theon Missick, an 11-year-old student also from Temple Christian, said he was so excited about last year’s camp that he didn’t want to miss it this year.

“The camp is really good. I learn to dribble and when to go up to lay up the ball, not to be scared,” said Missick, a sixth-grader. “I am going to go to school this year and work hard doing my school work, following God and playing basketball.”

Pierre said the camp has been going extremely good.

“The kids are learning and they are progressing,” he said. “They are eager to learn the drills that we teach them. It’s so good to see them transfer those skills that we teach them over to the game when they get a chance to play. So it’s good. It’s been pretty good.”

Pierre, however, said he’s disappointed that not more students outside of Temple Christian Academy are attending the camp.

“I would send my kids here because there are a lot of kids who will actually be playing for Temple Christian Academy,” Pierre said. “Over the past 10 years, they have been the more dominant school in the primary school basketball league and this is one of the reasons why they are excelling.

“If my kid is playing basketball, I would want them to come to this camp, doing the same drills and playing with them during the summer so my kid will be ready come October, November and December when they get to play most of their basketball competition.”

Tre Carey, a former protégé of Demeritte, is back home on a summer break from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville where he is going into his junior year as a member of the men’s track and field team. He said this is just a way of him giving back to the programme.

“It’s been going good. My transition has been good. I’m just trying to be stronger and faster so that I can perform better,” said the long jump specialist. “You have to give back some time. People who go off choose not to give back, but I’m grateful to coach Demeritte and I’m happy to be here to assist him.”

As a former student of the programme, who graduated from Temple Christian Academy primary school in 2006 and the high school in 2013, Carey said it’s hard to understand the importance of what he’s taught, but looking back at the results, he noted that it’s well worth it.

“When you see the children go through the programme that I went through it’s a good feeling,” said Carey, the 20-year-old computer engineering major. “I just hope that many of them would get the opportunity to go off to college too and eventually make their parents and coach Demeritte proud. “I just want to tell the youngsters to continue to work hard and stay focused. If they can put God first, they can overcome any obstacles that they are faced with.”