BOSTON – On Saturday, a new coalition called Boston Athletes United for Change (BAUC) held The Dream Is Real Basketball Clinic at Madison Park High School. The event brought together mostly junior high school and young high school players in the area, with a number of players who grew up in the area and have gone through life as a student-athlete on hand to help with instruction.
BAUC will provide high-level instruction from some of the best coaches in the New England area along with athletes that have played at the highest levels of their sports. If Saturday’s one-day event is any indication, there is plenty to draw from as a large contingent was on hand representing that group.
Notable Division I alumni among the clinic instructors included Jeff Adrien (Connecticut), Will Blalock (Iowa State), Courtney Eldridge (UNC Greensboro), Tony Lee (Robert Morris) and Demetrius Nichols (Syracuse). A few current Division I players, like NC State senior guard Farnold Degand, UMass junior guard Anthony Gurley and Fairfield sophomore guard Jamal Turner, and incoming freshman forwards Kyle Casey (Harvard) and Jamal Coombs-McDaniel (Connecticut) were also present to work with the young kids. Joining them was a junior college player who should join the Division I ranks in another year, Monroe Community College sophomore and Madison Park alum Raheem Singleton.
Saturday’s event featured several drill stations in the morning, followed by a lecture where several players demonstrated some good drills the young players can do during their own workouts. In the afternoon, the players were divided up into teams for one game each, then they all had a chance to watch the older players in a game of their own before they were finished for the day.
In the latter game, two players stood out the most, Nichols and Gurley. Nichols will soon be heading to training camp with the San Antonio Spurs, and if Saturday is any indication, he looks primed to make a big push to earn a spot on the roster. He shot the ball very well both off the dribble and the catch and looks to be in good shape. Gurley, for his part, showed why Derek Kellogg undoubtedly expects that he should put up some good scoring numbers alongside Ricky Harris in a perimeter unit that should be able to put up plenty of points.
When the event ended, a number of the older players and event staff talked about off-court matters to the young players. Several players spoke from experience on the importance of academics, having had to miss time during their careers because they didn’t take care of business in the classroom. It’s a point not to be taken lightly considering there are all too many kids in the Boston public schools every year who fall short of qualifying to play college basketball as true freshmen and not just in Division I. Plenty of others in recent years have left public high schools before their senior year for a prep school and repeated a year along the way.
Also, as was the case with the program’s brochure, they emphasized that while everyone should pursue their dream, a very small number of players actually make it to the NBA one day. Blalock and Nichols mentioned to the kids that they are hoping to make an NBA roster this season – they don’t have a job sewn up by a long shot as of now. It’s still an uphill battle to get young kids to understand the long odds of making the NBA, and not just in Boston.
The staff expressed hope to turn this into a good annual event. If Saturday is any indication, that hope isn’t misplaced, based on the kids who showed up and the older players who came by to lend a helping hand.
