Six weeks of basketball training for kids in kindergarten through eighth grade is available in Maricopa starting Aug. 26.
Alcurtis Turner of Kids Basketball Association (KBA) is returning to run the camp he started in Maricopa in 2013. He is expecting 20-25 students. He limits it based on the number of volunteer assistants he has available.
“The first year I came down, we had 80 kids,” Turner said. “That was too much.”
The camp is Saturdays from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. at Pacana Park at a rate of $10 per session.
“They’ll basically be ball-handling, running, a lot of cardio, passing and shooting,” Turner said. “We end a lot of times on defense. I give them a little motivational speech to try to build their confidence up.”
Most players who come to his camps are new to the game, and he’ll be drilling fundamentals for them.
“It’s very repetitive,” he said. “Sometimes I’ll switch it up when they get better. You can’t move on to something else until you master what you’ve been learning. Once kids buy into training, it makes it easier for them play in the games.”
Turner was a minor-league basketball player, playing street ball well enough to join semi-pro teams in Arizona. He said a lot of parents of would-be basketball players do not know the amount of work and patience required to become good.
Participating in the KBA camp is not just about basketball. Players are expected to be involved in Turner’s community service Sundays, doing work like picking up litter or painting over graffiti.
“It’s not going to be easy. This is not an overnight process.” Turner said. “It takes time, but they will learn from the best to become the best.”
480-335-0221
This story appears in the August issue of InMaricopa.
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