snow804

SoCalHoops Recruiting Report

Snow Valley Basketball Camp,
Santa Barbara--Report #1--(Aug.4, 1998)

All the "exposure" events are done. The show camps are over. The college coaches have gone home, and Elvis has left the building.

It's the quiet period. August. The entire month, sometimes known as a "dead period." No more recruiting, at least not up close and personal. Now it's time for the players to either recuperate and rest from the wars, or to really get serious about working on their games for the upcoming high school and fall pre-season.

We've done some small features on Snow Valley Basketball School, and have featured a listing for them in our Camps section. Sunday and today, we had the chance to get a closer look at the school, which is now in it's 38th year of operation. Snow Valley is held every year at Westmont College (NAIA/Division III) located in one of the most beautiful locations in Montecito foothills above Santa Barbara, California. Actually, the one thing we don't know is why it's called "Snow Valley" if it's in Santa Barbara. . . .we'll have to ask.

The school is truly a "school." It's not an exposure camp. Instead its a really great fundamentals camp, run by a highly professional staff, headed by Herb Livesay, the head of player development for the CBA, who one of the Nike reps at the High Five Tournament told me is "the hardest working man in basketball."

Having watched Herb in action for the last several days for a limited time, we'd have to agree. He's assembled a great staff of college and high school coaches, and has some excellent guest instructors, including Jim Cleamons, former Head Coach, Dallas Mavericks & Assistant coach of the Chicago Bulls, and Mark Grabow of the Golden State Warriors.

Herb explained his philosophy: "We're just trying to make these players the best high school basketball players they can be. We're not concerned with getting coaches or scouts out to see the players just running up and down the court. We want to work on fundamentals, concentration and repetition, because that's what builds a better player. And if these players become better, and they have the natural talent and abilities, the rest will follow."

Livesay also explained how his camp works, saying "We don't do limited drill stations, where a player runs from station to station. Instead, we assemble about 150 or so players from the same age group together, break them down into teams, and because we have such a large facility, each team gets it's own half-court to work on. An instructor will call everyone together, demonstrate the drills we're teaching, and then everyone will go to their own halfcourt where they work on the drill, getting individual attention from their team coach, and from the guest instructors for about 20 minutes for each drill."

Today, we witnessed this teaching system in action. First, understand that while this isn't the Army, there are certain aspects of the school which are highly regimented. Today, the coaches got the players up at 5:30 a.m. and had them assembled on the court at 6:00 a.m. for practice and some guard clinics. Breakfast was at 7:00, and by 8:00 a.m. the players were back on the courts for the defensive drills being taught by Jim Cleamons. The drills, taught through demonstration and then individual execution, ran from 8:00 a.m. through 12:00 noon. In the afternoon, each of the "teams" played a game against another team. The games were followed by clinics, and then in the evening more clinics after dinner. The environment is both relaxed, Santa Barbara style, but it's also total immersion in basketball.

And this is not a camp where a bunch of famous guys just come out and "talk" for 30 or 40 minutes to a group of players who sit there doing nothing. Nope. This morning we witnessed Jim Cleamons talking, demonstrating, and individually working with more than 200 players, all of them high school freshmen, teaching defensive drills, footwork, positioning and sealing techniques, team help defense, more footwork skills (reverse pivot or forward pivot. . .). Cleamons spoke, ran up and down the five courts for more than 2 hours, and displayed enormous energy and a real zest for teaching these young guys all he knows about the game. Of course what he knows is considerable, and 2 hours with him can only scratch the surface. But it was amazing to watch how he got these players to respond and execute to his ideas.

Cleamons is only one reason the Snow Valley experience is so valuable. Wayne Carlson is another.

Wayne is currently the girls' coach at Edison, and he's been coaching for more than 25 years, but still retains the same energy and enthusiasm for the game and teaching it that he had when he started. Just ask Wayne about the proper use of footwork in "catch and shoot" and you're likely to get not only an explanation of the differing theories of foot placement and pivoting, but an in-depth demonstration. Wayne is really a uniquely talented coach, and this is a school which is filled with talented teachers.

Lots of big time players have come through this camp over the years. Last year we saw most of the Simi Valley team, including Rafeal Berumen (6'-9" Sr. F), Branduinn Fullove (6'-5" Jr. G/F), Shuan and Brett Michel, the Bobicks from Newbury Park, and lots of other players. This year, players like Aras Baskauskas (6'-3 Sr.G) from Santa Monica, Brian Polen (6'-5" Sr. F) from Newbury Park, Nick Booker (6'-5" Jr. G/F) from The Bishop's School in La Jolla, and a great crop of incoming freshmen such as David Gale (5'-10" Fr. PG) from Buckley, Charlie Kranzdorf (6'-0" Fr. G/F) and Brian Trump (6'-0" Fr. F) from Montclair Prep, Matt Llwellyn (6'-0" Fr. SG) from LA Loyola, Craig Weinstein (5'-9" Fr. G) Drew Firestone (5'-10" Fr. SG) and Teddy Boxberger (6'-4" Fr. F) all from Harvard-Westlake, and Mark Susson (5'-8" Fr. PG) from Irvine.

When we asked Herb for a list of names, he hesitated for a minute. He asked us why we'd want such a list. We told him that people would be interested in knowing who was attending the camp. He seemed genuinely not to care about that, saying "Why should anyone care who's here? You know, we really don't actually care who the 'stars' are and who the 'regular guys' are here. In our book, we treat them all the same, and we really want them all to improve and just be the best they can be."

There's that darn Army stuff creeping in again. But Herb smiled, shrugged his shoulders, and agreed to give us a list (we could have actually copied the list that was posted on the gym wall, but that seemed like too much work). We suspect though that it won't be among his first priorities, and we'll probably end up doing our own list based on observations of size, height and class ourselves. But we digress.

Cleamons echoed Livesay's sentiments about improving and being the best player you can be in one of his brief talks to a small group of assembled players, saying "Now that the tournaments are over, it's time for you to really work on your game. Summer is time for individual improvement. You must get your skills down, improve your game, focus on your mechanics, so that when the high school season comes around, your coach can develop the team rather than have to worry about teaching fundamentals to individual players. And you too as players can then focus during the season on becoming part of a team, communicating and integrating. In other words, do you homework now, not during the season, because summer is the real season."

Cleamons gave an example of the importance of team, drawing on his own experience as a high school player. "We won our state high school championship," Cleamons said. "And we did it with a team on which the tallest guy was 6'-2". How did we do it? Obviously we played against teams that were much bigger than us, and who had better athletes and better players. We did it by communicating, reacting, and working together. There wasn't one single guy on our team who could have shut down or beat the team we won the state title from. But by working together, we pulled it off. In basketball team is everything, the individual really is nothing if he doesn't understand this basic principle."

The Snow Valley Basketball camp will run from this last Sunday, August 2 through Friday, August 7. The sessions are pretty much open to the public, and if you want to see what a real teaching camp is all about, we'd urge you to take a trip up the 101 to Montecito and Westmont College.

From Los Angeles, take the Ventura (101) Freeway north to Santa Barbara. You'll exit at Old Mill Road, which is in Montecito. Turn right, and proceed up the hill. Just follow the signs to Westmont College. You won't be disappointed.