EATON — Coach Dave Honhart and members of his team held their annual summer camp for girls in second-eighth grades June 13-16.
At camp, the organizers run five stations that instruct the fundamentals of the game such as dribbling, passing the ball and movement with the ball, and boxing out on rebounding. From there, the instructors break the groups down into full court teams. Later on in the week, half court sessions were conducted to get equal playing time for everyone.
“I have coached small colleges, high schools, and clubs for about twenty-three years now. This is the ninth camp I’ve run. The fun part of camp is you get to pass on knowledge to the younger players,” Coach Honhart said. “With the Eagles camp program, we have three main goals: help everyone become better at basketball, form new and long lasting friendships, and have fun. Almost all of our high school players work at camp, they do a great job of teaching the craft and passing their skills to the kids. Almost all of them have been through camp before so it’s exciting to see things come full circle. We try to group the kids by age and skill level. We also bring in some guest speakers. Yesterday, we had Kelly McDonald who played for me when I was an assistant coach at Sycamore. She is a senior at Thomas Moore who won back to back Division III championships. Moore has the distinction of having the highest GPA at the championship final game last year.”
“This is my third year at Eaton,” said Honhart. “There are 37 campers this year. This is about the average of what we normally bring in. We know most of the people pretty well and this camp is a good way to enhance our knowledge of them and to help enhance their skills should they all decided to play the game further. The kids are working hard and having fun. We are also getting kids from outside the area. There’s one from Michigan and another from Texas who are here visiting families and have chosen to come.”
Megan Lipps is one of the varsity players who helped out at the camp this year.
“It’s really different,” Lipps said. “Its strange to see kids growing up, and how I grew up, its a different experience. Being a leader is scary and a lot of work. But I like it. I like being able to teach kids. Parents bring their kids out at 8 a.m., so the community support is just incredible.”
Bailee Worley is another high school player who is contributing to camp. “Being a camper is important to listen to everyone,” she said. “When you are a counselor, it’s good to remember that you were there and know they are learning what you learned, and it’s fun. You are there to help them become what you wished to become at their ages. It’s awesome.”
