Updated. The four Kent Crusaders National League teams held the first joint training camp in club history this weekend. The Under 14, Under 16 and Under 18 teams joined the Men’s team for a weekend of both serious basketball, a referees course and lots of fun.

The junior teams has only joining the club this season and the club directors wanted to celebrate the expansion by getting all the club members together. “We wanted to make sure that all the teams feel that they’re part of the same club”, says Crusaders director of basketball, Jesse Sazant. “We’re bringing a lot of talented players together and the training camp was a chance for the kids to get to know the men’s players on a personal level, while the men got to see all of the new talent coming up. But more importantly all the club members now know each other, and feel part of the same project of bringing the Crusaders to the top of English basketball”.

The highlight of the weekend was Saturday afternoon when all the players took part in a mixed tournament where one player from each age group was put on teams together and played in a three on three tournament. For two hours the teams battled it out for the honour of being the best team in the club.

After the tournament the men put on a show for the kids as last years home crowd favourite JP Dimandja lost out to newcomers Jamie Bragan and Soren Sorensen in a slam dunk contest, with Sorensen taking the honours in the end.

“It looked like everybody really enjoyed it”, says Crusaders men’s head coach Mads Olesen, “There was a lot of good basketball, and even more laughs. The kids got to play with the men, to see how good they really are, and the men got to have some fun in a weekend packed with three hard practices”.

Apart from the afternoon of fun the weekend was filled with hard work for everybody. Each of the four teams practiced two or three times over the weekend and made great strides to get ready for the season.

“The men’s team had three tough practices”, says Olesen, “A weekend like this makes it possible to spend a lot of time focusing on teamwork and with quite a lot of new players on the team it has been instrumental in making us a team on and off the court. It’s my impression that the same has been the case for all the teams this weekend”.

Additionally local National League referee Tony Tuffs ran a referees course for the Under 18 team and rules update sessions for all of the squads.

From the Under 18’s:

On Saturday and Sunday last week, Canterbury based Kent Crusaders National League Basketball Club, ran their first ever inter-club training weekend. Players are categorised into Under 14, Under 16, Under 18 and Senior Teams within the club and never before have the training sessions been mixed, and all costs were covered by the club.

Over 60 dedicated members of the club partook in ‘classroom style’ theory lessons and practical drills and skills, led by a motivational team of coaches and mentors. Each player enjoyed the unique experience of training with mixed age range and ability. The coaches decided that it would be beneficial for all age groups to ‘watch and learn’ which hidden talents lie within the club. The juniors could see what standard of skill and athleticism they needed to reach to play at a senior level, and the seniors could see what talents were coming through from the juniors, to keep them on their toes!

The Under 18s were given a fantastic opportunity to qualify as Level 1 Apprentice Referees, again, organised and paid for by the club. They all said that the training weekend had been an amazing chance to inter-mingle with the juniors and seniors, and have developed their basketball knowledge and experience, furthering their motivation and enthusiasm to become better players.

This was an incredibly successful weekend that has really helped form a special bond between all club players. Another is planned soon!

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 7th, 2008 at 5:22 pm and is filed under Club News, General Basketball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.