PITTSBORO — If you blinked when registration went live for one of Seaforth’s most popular youth summer camps, there’s a good chance you ended up on the waitlist.
That was the case for many people interested in signing up for the school’s first-ever women’s basketball summer camp, which became the first Seaforth youth camp to sell out during May’s registration period.
“We really wanted to push it and we had all of the girls involved,” Charles Byrd, Seaforth’s second-year head women’s basketball coach, told the News + Record. “We really worked hard on the marketing and getting the word out to people because it’s important to me that we get the camp filled up.”
The camp, which took place in Seaforth’s gymnasium from June 27-July 1, was a weeklong skills development workshop for children aged 6-14, led by most members of the school’s basketball coaching staff, including Byrd.
“I think it was awesome,” Byrd said. “I really, really wanted to hone in on the girls having a ton of energy. I wanted them to have a ton of fun, but I also wanted them to learn skills and drills that they could do. … I think there was great energy around it.”
To make things more enjoyable for the younger groups of campers, the counselors brought in a smaller basket and lowered some of the goals in Seaforth’s main gym, but kept three goals at their standard 10-foot height for the camp’s older attendees.
At the start of each day, campers would be divided into groups, where they’d go through a plethora of form drills, including ball-handling and passing, and then they’d move into what Byrd called “Skills of the Day,” drills focused on specific skills like jump stops, one-dribble pull-ups and jab steps, each lasting about five minutes.
Following skill-based drills, the campers would take part in a skills competition and a “coach’s clinic,” where Byrd taught them different drills that they’re able to do at home on their own.
Then, when all of the drill work was over, they’d play scrimmage games.
As part of Byrd’s desire to make the camp more fun — and put everything they’d learned to the test — the camp’s final day featured the campers putting on multiple exhibition games, where parents could sit in the stands and spectate.
And the older group of players not only got to play in their own game, but do so on the school’s main court, wearing Seaforth’s basketball jerseys as they immersed themselves into the Hawks’ culture.
“It was a really great experience,” Byrd said. “I wanted the younger girls, the girls that are coming up, to see what it looks like to be a Seaforth Hawk.”
Byrd had help from an impressive group of assistant counselors, including Hawks J.V. men’s basketball head coach John Berry — a coaching and youth camp veteran — who Byrd said helped him with his knowledge of structuring, preparing for and running a camp of this magnitude.
It was important to Byrd to have as small of a coach-to-player ratio as possible, allowing players to get more hands-on instruction that they may miss out on at larger basketball camps.
The final registration tally, according to Byrd, was 76 — 51 attendees and 25 on the waitlist — a promising sign for the future of women’s basketball in Pittsboro.
“I tell parents that I really appreciate them buying into what we’re trying to do here and helping build a foundation, a stepping stone, for the girls that need their voices to be heard,” he added. “I really think it was big time, especially with a sport like basketball. … For that many girls to come together and play basketball, that was the biggest thing for me.”
While there was initially some worry about fitting so many campers into the gym and still keeping things structured, Byrd said he and his coaching staff got together a game plan that “worked out perfectly.”
Part of that game plan were the breaks in the action lasting anywhere from three to 15 minutes, where campers could not only lay back and take a breather, but play games like Knockout, have free-throw competitions and even watch their lead counselor throw down a dunk or two.
“Pretty much every day, when I was showing them the drills, I would go up and dunk. I would show them the basics and I was like, ‘OK, you’ve got that, now you can do this,’ and just dunk,” Byrd said, laughing. “Then the girls of the camp would get one of the girls from our program and say, ‘Hey, you do that now,’ so I thought that part was funny.”
Byrd said he sees the youth camp as just another way for him to keep forming a family-oriented culture around Seaforth basketball, namely within the women’s program.
“(We’re building) strong, driven women to become fierce athletes and community leaders through communication, culture and commitment,” Byrd said. “This year, we’ve developed this philosophy called ‘Empty the Bucket,’ which means that they maximize everything, each and every play. … I’m really just trying to get them to buy in to the culture that I’m trying to set here.
“I’ve tried to keep everything basic (this offseason) because I’m trying to build this team mentality,” he added. “I’m trying to get them to understand that we’re a big family. … It’s been awesome to have such a big turnout this summer.”
Reporter Victor Hensley can be reached at vhensley@chathamnr.com or on Twitter at @Frezeal33.