Elevation Basketball Camp reaching new heights in 2016

BY ALLEN A. BUCHANAN, Staff Writer

ST. PETERSBURG –– Camp organizer Sean Morrison promises that this year’s Elevation Basketball Camp will be bigger and better! The fun gets underway this Saturday and Sunday, July 16-17 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

“We’ve learned a lot from last year’s event, so we’ve added a few tweaks here and there to make it better,” said Morrison, who is the owner of On Time Entity, a licensed liability company.

One of the tweaks includes extending the age range of male and female participants from 15 to 17 years old. As a result, the event opens a window of opportunity for more high school students to participate and compete in the two-day basketball camp.

“We hope to get more girls to participate by having more female basketball coaches involved this year,” said Morrison. In addition to more female coaches, the male coaching staff will also increase with four new coaches.

The new female and male trainers for this year’s Elevation Basketball camp are as follows:

• Jasmine Cohen, Rollins College

• Kamika Idom, Florida International University

• Kayla Roberts, Augusta University

• Rainey Brownlee, Hillsborough Community College

• Sasha Chaplin, Indiana University

• Gabriel Moton, Boston College

• Jon Cabino, Eckerd College

• Myron Dempsey

• Kenneth Speedy Smith

All female and male coaches will teach fundamental drills to improve shooting precision, speed, stamina and defense strategies. In addition, this year’s camp will feature a new basketball skill challenge taken directly out of the NBA All-Star Weekend Playbook, according to Morrison.

Dr. Solomon Lowery, Principal of Thurgood Marshall Fundamental Middle School, will be the guest speaker on Saturday, and Principal Barry Brown will address camp participants on Sunday.

Local DJ Herman Jones will provide the musical inspiration both days, and PDQ will provide free lunches to fuel the young athletes who could one day end up in the Olympics, the WNBA or the NBA. Everything starts with a dream and hard work.

There are only 20 openings left. Registration starts at 9 a.m. Saturday morning only.