Camp Rules

Camp is off to a great start! We have finished our first week and we are beginning our second. Please excuse the time lapse between blogs as I am short on time to write. I have a lot to share and will have a lot more in the future.
When camp begins on Monday we have to cover some very important ground rules, so the day goes by a little slow. The ground rules for camp are very simple: 1. listen-be a sponge, not a drain; 2. Be courteous- Say “Please and Thank You.”; 3. Pick up trash-leave it better than you found it; 4. Be the Example. They are 4 very simple and easy rules and review them on a daily basis. The best part comes at the end of the week when we talk about how the rules apply outside of camp. Last week I talked about the rules on Monday and briefly reminded the campers as the week went on, and to my surprise on Friday when I asked about the camp rules they all knew them by heart. I went on to ask the questions of “do they apply away from camp?” and everyone agreed they did. That was exciting.
The camp rules are very simple. The best lesson learned was that these rules not only apply in camp but outside of camp as well. I hope they get some basketball from the week, but if they don’t and they only get the camp rules then I think camp is a success. The cool thing about the rules as they not only apply to the campers but they apply to the coaches as well and I think the coaches will practice these rules away from camp. If we were to have only a few rules for our lives, wouldn’t these be good rules to follow?
I think camp makes an impact. I will never be certain how may basketball players we will make out of camp, but I think we will definitely make better people. That is why I love camp. Let me give you an example- I saw a young man come into the gym who was not a part of camp, he grabbed a cup of water and instead of throwing his cup away he just dropped the cup. A camper who was one his way out for the day saw this as well, and we looked at each other and the camper said to me, “Coach, he is not a camper.” The camper then proceeds to race me to the cup to pick it up. That was exciting. Once again, I love camp.
By the way- one camper reminded me about rule #5-Have Fun! When we doing things right we will have a lot of fun.