Camps expose rural Aboriginal youth to basketball

Thanks to a new program some Aboriginal youth across Saskatchewan have been learning some basketball basics this season.

Children between the ages of 12-16 have been taking advantage of the free Saskatchewan Aboriginal Basketball Skill Development Camps. The program was launched in October and will continue at least until the end of January.

But there’s a chance it will also be extended until March. The clinics are made possible thanks to a $12,000 grant from Sask Sport Inc.’s Aboriginal Excellence program.
And they are being held in partnership with Basketball Saskatchewan, the Métis Nation of Saskatchewan and the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations.

A total of seven skill development camps were scheduled. But Mason Medynski, an organizer of the clinics, said that was not the original plan.

“We were only supposed to have three skill development camps,” he said. “And then we were going to do 3-4 ID camps.”

Those ID camps were intended to identify athletes from Saskatchewan that might go on to represent the province at the 2011 North American Indigenous Games in Milwaukee. But when those games were cancelled this past summer there was no need to stage the ID camps. So far, camps have been staged in La Loche, Pelican Narrows, La Ronge and Yorkton. A camp had also been scheduled for Carlyle in early December.

But Medynski said that event had to be cancelled as the three coaches who run the clinics were unable to attend. Camps are also scheduled to be held in Fort Qu’Appelle on Jan. 15 and in Meadow Lake on Jan. 29.

“We go through all types of drills,” Medynski said. “We do drills for things like ball handling, shooting and passing. It’s nothing too advanced. It’s introductory stuff. The places we are going to are not super strong basketball communities.”

Medynski said some of those that do show up for the camps are newcomers to basketball. “It varies,” he said of the talent that has been coming thus far.

“Some of them haven’t played at all. Some of them haven’t touched a basketball. They’re more into volleyball or hockey but they come to check it out.”

Each clinic can accommodate a maximum of 30 participants.

“We’ve only got one gym to use,” Medynski said. So far, however, program organizers have not been forced to turn away any interested participants as none of the clinics have reached their cap.

Medynski said organizers were keen to visit small communities as opposed to running the program in cities such as Regina, Saskatoon or Prince Albert.

“There’s lot of opportunities (to play basketball) for kids in those centres,” he said. Medynski added for the most part those who have taken part in the clinics are from the same community where they are being held.

But he added about a half dozen children did travel about an hour to get to the clinic held in La Ronge this past November. Though the Meadow Lake camp is the last one that has been announced thus far, Medynski said some more dates could soon be added.

“We’ll decide sometime in February,” he said. “We’ll go through the budget and see how much money we have left.” If other camps are added, they would probably be held in March.

“They’d be in different centres than the ones already held,” Medynski said.

More information on the camps is available by emailing Medynski at teamsask.basketball@gmail.com or by phone at (306) 241-6399.