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Smiling faces and excited young players took the court at Warrior Arena as the Thompson boys and girls basketball teams helped teach the fundamentals of the game at the Warrior Youth Basketball Camp. (For the Reporter/Dawn Harrison)

By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

ALABASTER – It was two days of fun, smiles and basketball with the Thompson Warriors as they welcomed the community to its Warrior Youth Basketball Camp on July 23 and 24 at Warrior Arena.

This year’s edition was the first since Major Deacon took over as the head boys basketball coach, and he believed it was a successful effort that helped grow basketball in the Alabaster area.

“The camp went tremendous,” Deacon said. “I thought it was really good for our youth. We’re just trying to give back to the community, give them something to do, work on fundamentals and increase people wanting to play basketball in the community.”

The campers focused on learning the fundamentals of basketball from Thompson coaches and players, including shooting, passing and dribbling the ball as well as playing defense.

Deacon and the Warriors went to those core foundational principles because he believes they are essential to playing basketball in today’s game.

“Those are the four fundamentals that everyone needs to learn how to be to play basketball,” Deacon said.

The camp was a complete team effort from both Thompson’s boys and girls basketball programs. Second-year head girls basketball coach Art Bogan’s players and staff worked side-by-side with the boys in hopes of providing the best experience for the campers.

Deacon was extremely proud of how well the girls basketball coaches and players helped as well as his own team.

“We had plenty of player involvement from boys and girls,” Deacon said. “That was one thing that we were big in is working together with our girls basketball coaching staff. They were phenomenal the whole time. Their players were great. I thought our players did a good job of giving back to the kids.”

The players helping out with the camp meant that they also got to meet and interact with their favorite players that they see on the Warrior Arena court during the season.

Deacon is quick to remind the players that they were once like the campers too and looked up to the varsity players when they were kids.

With that in mind, he hopes that through experiences like this, the kids in the community will look up to the Warriors players and see them as good examples to follow as they grow up while the players show good character that kids can model.

“To me, it’s about giving back to the community and also helping prepare our kids, giving those little kids someone to look up to who eventually they will hopefully become because they’re going to see them play in those games one day and reminding also our players that they used to be those kinds of kids,” Deacon said. “Being a good role model and example to the youth I think is really important for our community in its entirety.”

The Warriors see the kids attending the camp as the future of basketball in the area, and as they saw this week, that future is full of kids fired up about playing the game.

Deacon said that his favorite part of the week was seeing the smiles on the kids’ faces each day when he came into the gym. That excitement made him excited about coaching the camp as well as excited about the energy that the kids will hopefully one day bring when they become Warriors.

“Nothing is better than seeing a smile on a kid’s face,” Deacon said. “It’s the feeling of Christmas Day when you see them running and smiling around and jumping around and having a good time. I think that energy is infectious and it’s something that we look to bring forward into our program. It’s just a great feeling.”

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