Who's In?

You notice I didn’t say “fantasy camp.” If you want to hob-nob for a few days with Michael Jordan (for $17,500), with Mike Krzyzweski (for $10,000), or with Rick Barry (for $2,195—yeah, well, Rick Barry), or other basketball names of variously faded glories, they’re out there. By the copywriting in the promos, it’s unclear whether women are welcome at these camps. Don’t know what they’d do if you signed up with a gender neutral name and then just showed up….

But, you’ve gotta ask, at thousands per day are you paying for good coaching, or the brush with fame? I would love to find a sponsor to send me to all of these camps for comparison’s sake. See how they stack up instructionally as well as in their openness to the female camper.

I think I’m qualified because I’m kind of opinionated. I’m fundamentally sound (so I’m told). I’m used to playing with mostly guys. And I have a superb benchmark for an adult basketball camp.

I recently came back from attending the Never Too Late Basketball Camp in Lakeside, Michigan (less than two hours’ drive from Chicago, on the shores of Lake Michigan). There’s something cleansing and invigorating about so much basketball packed into a few days, temporarily replacing the other worries and minutiae that clutter the mind. A really great coach to player ratio means lots of attention to your progress. And while these coaches may not be regulars on ESPN Classic, they know their stuff.

I have to admit, I’ve been to this camp a few times. A couple of years ago, before I had this blog, I wrote about it, in hopes of selling the story to some Lake Michigan area lifestyle magazine or something--anything really. Guess I didn’t find the right outlet, so I’ll fish the document out and post it in here. Might as well get some use out of it, no? Even though, written as a compact (sort of) article, and not a rambling blog, it sounds…what is it? Affected? Too studied? Just bad? My apologies if so.

(I’ve annotated it with some updated information.)

You Need a Coach

NEWS FLASH: I am not going to be invited to the next WNBA tryout. Nor will I be recruited to any Division I, II, or III college program. Or even make my high school varsity team.

Why? Because I am 42 years old.

But I’ve got the hoops jones of any promising 13 year-old, so even though all signs point to its being too late, I try to ignore them. I only started playing ten years ago, so in my basketball life, I am a mere youth, right? I just know I want to play hard and often, develop my game all I can before I really slow down, so that when, I mean, if that happens, I’ll actually have some skill to fall back on. It’s hard, though, to do that by yourself, or in weekly pickup games with all their quirky personalities and bad habits.

Given all that, I was naturally attracted to the notion (as well as the name) of Never Too Late Basketball Camps and the organization’s weekend-long intensive playing clinic for adults. It was downright irresistible. So I signed up.

And after 11 hours of hoops over the course of 36, I was glad I did. This isn't your touch-the-celebrity fantasy camp kind of thing. This was a "citizens'" gig, with high-school has-beens, city league wannabes, and earnest students of the game pushing themselves on the court like any Five Star campers.

There were more than a dozen of us campers, aged 23-53. What made otherwise sane adults want to leave home and hearth behind to spend a weekend doing the kind of drills you might remember from gym class...and then some? Plain old love of the game.

Specifically, for example, Liz, a 32 year-old elementary school teacher, said she wanted to become more of an offensive threat in her Chicago league games. Terry, a 46 year-old tax attorney also from the Chicago area, took up basketball when his kids started to play, and he didn’t know what they were talking about. He’s been to a few NTL camps and returned to refresh his skills. Johnny, a grad student from Ohio, back for his second NTL camp, wanted to get a better grip on where to go on the court during a game. Arthur, a lawyer from New Jersey, went to spend a weekend hanging out and playing hoops with his college buddy John, a Chicago area engineer, and his high school buddy Lloyd, a professor and musician. You see?

Whatever we went for, what we all got was a hoops-lovers getaway: A weekend of play-eat-sleep in a charming spot. (We stayed at The Lakeside Inn in Michigan’s Harbor Country, and played at nearby River Valley High School.) That in itself would have been fabulous, even if we were just playing pickup at both ends of the day. But added to it was the incalculable thrill of the learning curve—just the opposite of a roller coaster, with the ride up the uphill slope bringing immense satisfaction. That we owed to our own efforts, of course, and particularly to the coaching staff.

These may not be household names, but they are the real deal: Steve Bzomowski, former Division I player, Harvard University coach, and scout for the Minnesota Timberwolves, and Greg Tonagel, former NCAA starter and student-coach with the Valparaiso Crusaders, and [now, since 2005] current head coach of the Indiana Wesleyan University Wildcats. Not to mention coach of the year in his conference. They were joined [in 2005 and 2006] by Tonagel’s brother Joel, an earnest and talented point guard, with an enviable comfort in coaching people twice his age.

As for what makes a good coach, I could say knowledge, a perceptive eye, and the ability to communicate and motivate. Or I could describe Bzomowski, a tornado of energy and sly wit, who can both describe and demonstrate the moves he’s teaching with equal artistry. The founder of Never Too Late, he is a master of breaking down complex processes into learnable skills. “I don’t think anybody has broken down the lay-up as far as I have,” Bzomowski said in a reflective moment, and it’s true. He’s got it down to the molecular level: Where to put your feet, how to grip the ball, how the last dribble should sound, what to aim at, where to look…. He can get a total novice shooting sweet lay-ups in half an hour—I saw it happen.

At camp’s first practice on Friday night we all warmed up a little diffidently, working hard at making the moves we’ve kind of got look smooth while trying to absorb the barrage of information being fired at us. First of all, the rules of engagement: Respect each other’s physical and emotional safety. Then a high-speed fusillade of essentials about how to best execute a lay-up, where to go after you’ve passed a ball, how to get a good spin on your chest pass, what a good screen looks like and where to set it.

Definite overload for the group still trying to learn each other’s names, but as the weekend progressed you could see it as part of a grand scheme for imparting as much hoops knowledge as possible. Like dumping all the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle on the table before going back to turn them over, sort them out and start to make sense of them.

We campers had to repair to the Red Arrow Road House afterward to cool our brains.

These coaches are what every athlete (and every learner of anything) needs. They’re demanding, utterly focused on the present, ready to drive you hard and make you laugh. A dash of goofiness puts the intensity in perspective. While teaching defensive concepts, Bzomowski emphasized keeping an eye on the ball. “Never turn to follow. Instead look back to see.” He said it again for good measure. “Never turn to follow. Instead look back to see.” And hearing the Emily Dickinson rhythm of his statement, he broke into song: “I love playing defense. Defense is for me!” The more laconic Tonagel had some poetry for learning defense too: “You reach? I teach.”

They do know how to teach. Bzomowski is the king of analogies, able to make lightning quick comparisons between basketball and other possibly more familiar activities, especially other sports. He alluded to football, baseball, swimming, gymnastics, track, bowling, horseracing, even Monopoly (“You’ve got to value the post. It’s Boardwalk and Park Place”) and chess (“Hey, don’t just stand there like you’re waiting for a bus. Be ready. Bend your knees. All athletes bend their knees. Even chess players”).

You know, that made people laugh, and that loosened them up enough to actually bend their knees!

Anyone involved in pedagogy can tell you laughter is an unmatched medium for learning. Both Bzomowski’s and Tonagel’s styles—though quite different—put humor to good use. In imparting their basketball wisdom, Bzomowski’s exciting alacrity and Tonagel’s calm intensity brought out chuckles and developed cumulative in-jokes that united the diverse group.

“Wait. Stop, Tamika,” Bzomowski said to a player bringing the ball upcourt and trying to get a play started in too much of a hurry. “You’re the point guard. It’s like being the pitcher. If you’re a pitcher, are you going to throw your fastball before the shortstop’s in place? You know? You’re Pedro Martinez and you start winging that thing while Garciaparra’s still walking to his spot?” [OK, see, I wrote it in 2004!] That helped make clear what shouldn’t happen.

And revealed Never Too Late’s Boston origins. The Larry Bird allusions were frequent, and became the source of amusement. But between Bzomowski’s and Tonagel’s experiences playing, coaching, and studying the game, they could back up any point with an anecdote or comment from coaches or players from the last 40 years. Though a quarter-century apart in age, the two coaches speak the same language—that of walking basketball encyclopediae, with personal experience. Tonagel can tell you what it’s like to play against Carmelo Anthony. Bzomowski what it’s like to play with Charlie Yelverton. (Or to coach Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan—no kidding.)

By Sunday, as we said our goodbyes and see-you-next-years (because camp will return there next spring, in case you missed it this time…) on the Lakeside Inn porch, we hated to go. Beat as we were, we wished there was more. “Steve, if you ever have a five-day camp, sign me up,” said Liz, and others of us nodded. We were heading to our cars exhausted, instructed, and completely inspired for the play ahead.

What I discovered at camp, besides a sharper between-the-legs dribble, was that no matter how long you've been driving around in the same old gear, you can shift, you can make a change, you can learn something, even get better. You just need a catalyst, and the best kind is a coach.

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For another look at what a Never Too Late camp is like, check out the coverage it got in Fast Company magazine a few years back.