The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

DESPITE the restrictions imposed by COVID-19, Marvin Henfield said he’s quite pleased with the way his Shooting Academy is going in the old Coca-Cola warehouse at the rear of the Bahama Journal building on Thompson Boulevard.

Since its official launch in November, “The Lab,” as it is affectionately called, was born out of Henfield’s love for teaching and his passion for the sport of basketball over 30-plus years of instructing countless numbers of Bahamians and international basketball players.

Designed primarily for developing the art of shooting, Henfield said they have had to restructure their focus on the programme from quantity of participants to the quality of the work that he and his assistant coach Sanchez Moss can do on a daily basis with each participant.

“We have had to consistently keep our numbers between six and nine persons per session.” Henfield said. “We have nine goals in there so each kid is able to access his own rim, wear their mask and play with their own basketball.

“Our rims are spaced out at 11-feet apart and we do the hand sanitising and temperature check on all of the participants in and out of the facility. So we’ve been able to make it work with our small numbers during this COVID-19 environment.”

Originally, Henfield said the goal was to accommodate up to 20-plus players per session as they develop their ball-handling skills dribbling on the wall in the open space and allowing others to do additional drills on the open space on the floor.

“Because of COVID-19, we have to keep a maximum and so we could only accommodate between 9-12 persons per session,” he stated.

When they began their launch on November 15, Henfield said it was anticipated having the participants select a plan where they came in twice a week one week and once the next week, or they came three times in one week.

“We quickly learned that none of those plans really worked in that first month leading up to December 15 because the kids really didn’t do any work when they were away from us,” he said. “In the the days they didn’t come to us, they were not doing any work.

“So we amended our schedule coming into January where we abandoned those plans we had and we just did a bulk rate where the kids could get access to train five days a week from Monday to Friday. That gives us the ability to see the growth that we wanted.”

As a result of the amendment to their schedule, Henfield said they are able to get closer to their end goal as it relates to creating a safe and secure environment for the players to come after school to engage in their training sessions.

“I didn’t intend to keep them indoors for this long because we wanted them to be able to go outside and participate in the events we have for them as well,” he pointed out. “But in keeping them indoors, its helped in their development in terms of shooting where the kids can lay down their own foundation for their success in shooting the basketball.”

And to assist the players in their shooting skills, Henfield said he’s been able to purchase the top of the line Dr Dish CT (Complete Training) machine, which is considered to be one of the best shooting machines on the market.

“It allows us to continue to expand our vision of being a shooting academy,” Henfield said. “Kids are now able to shoot the ball and don’t have to worry about rebounding. The machine rebounds for them and passes the ball back to them.

“The machine comes loaded with over 1,500 pre-loaded programme skills inside of it from 75 of the top trainers in the world and from a few hundred coaches. So kids are able to log in their profile, put in their phone number and run a pin that they created and then they access their workout assignments that we have assigned to their plans.”

On their free time, Henfield said each player can log onto any other plan they wish to pursue but, for the time being, they have a structured training programme that they must maintain. “It’s an exciting tool for us to have,” he said. “By virtue of having the shooting machine, you can get up to four to six times the shots you would normally take without the machine. So it’s a great tool to add to the basketball players where they can consistently shoot over 200 basketballs in one setting. That has never been heard of in the Bahamas.”

When you add the amount of shots a player can shoot over the course of a year using the machine, Henfield said it should be able to improve their percentage in a game significantly when its time to compete for their respective teams.

The Dr Dish CT machine also allows the coaches to track each player’s individual statistics on a daily basis depending on whether they shoot the ball from the wing, the corner or the top of the key, which is added to their profile. “The machine keeps a track of those percentages, those makes and those misses, so it’s a great cool feature for each kid in their own personal profile,” Henfield said.

By the end of the year, Henfield said they hope to add another six machines, which will be placed at the seven goals they have inside the facility.

For those persons who still wish to get involved in the programme, Henfield revealed that their hours go from 7am to 7pm from Monday to Saturday and from 1pm to 7pm, but those hours can only be accessed by booking times on their app.

“Not because we say 7am mean that I will be there 7am. We will only be there for those persons who book the time,” he said. “In that way, we can control the crowd in this COVID-19 environment and we won’t have to be waiting around for persons to show up and they don’t show up.”

Interested persons can log onto www.mhbshootingacademy.com. Instagram page @ mhbshootingacademy on his Instagram page at Marvin J Henfield.