The 27th annual B&K Basketball Camp at Paden City High School is now in the books as another great opportunity for the players who attended.

Included were instructional drills in ball handling, passing, shooting, and rebounding. Offense and defense techniques were taught, with video tapes on hand to help as instructional guides. The campers also enjoyed a number of contests designed to sharpen their basketball skills.

The camp was brought together by the tandem of Bob Burton, a former coach at Paden City and the present coach, Fred King. Upon Burton’s retirement, the camp stayed together with the help of many, including Assistant Girls’ Basketball Coach Jeff Bowers, who has been with the program throughout the years.

Others who have played an instrumental part in staging the camp are Mark Barnhart, Brent Croasmun, and Bowers’ daughter, Jenny, as well as King’s wife, Debbie, and their daughter Brittany.

More than 100 campers and 20 instructors were involved in this year’s camp. The instructors, as well as the campers, were kept busy all the time during the day and even well after the camp was over for the day. Campers were put into two separate groups, one for the younger campers and one for the older players.

Early in the morning, older campers separated into two areas, one outside (when not raining) and one in the big gym. Before they split up, the campers would stretch and shoot for 15 minutes before the camp started, to get warmed up. Meanwhile, the younger groups went to the all-purpose room, where they followed the same routine as the older campers.

Every day, campers practiced foul shots, three point shots, and hot-spot skill fundamentals, such as a standing broad jump, vertical leap, rope jump, quickness drill, and bag jumping. In addition, campers participated in an academic portion where they took a math test.

While all of that was happening, the athletes were separated into teams and competed against their own age and gender groups. A ribbon ceremony was held to recognize the campers every day for their accomplishments. Each camper had the opportunity to win a blue ribbon daily. During the games, ties were broken with foul shots.