Quote:
Originally Posted by Jurassic Referee
It's just another run-of-the-mill freaking summer rec camp run by a few people to make some $$s in their spare time.
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Agree. During my dark side days as a middle school basketball coach, I was invited to coach at three camps, for several summers, headed by high school coaches, including one overnight camp, and one overnight camp, also for several summers, headed by a Hall of Fame college coach. I also, as an official, attended a northeast regional overnight camp run by a prestigious basketball officiating organization. In all four cases it was, for the most part, a "check 'em in, keep 'em busy for a week, cash the checks" mentality.
I'm sure that there are exceptions to this, that is, camps where the directors truly want to improve the skills of the attendees rather than just get to the end of the week for a great payday. I also agree with JurassicReferee that some great instruction can be found at local camps. I know that this is the case here in my little corner of Connecticut, where our local board runs camps, usually attached to a high school summer league, or, more recently, an AAU tournament, using top notch veteran officials as counselors. Not only have these camps been free to the attendees, but in the case of the AAU tournament, the attendees got to keep the game fees for officiating the AAU games. Now there's example of camps that are not in it for the fast buck.