Brennan AngelThis summer in Oceano, boys and girls from first through eighth grade will be hitting the hardwood with former NBA All-Star power forward Horace Grant, Cal Poly men’s basketball head coach Kevin Bromley and members of the Mustang men’s basketball team.
The four-day Horace Grant’s Central Coast Basketball Camp, a joint venture between Grant and Bromley, is a chance to “give back to the community” from June 25 to 28, Bromley said.
Though costing $250 for registration, the camp is nonprofit and will be held at the newly opened Oceano Community Center, which Bromley said is “a beautiful facility.” A portion of the proceeds will benefit the center. He also said that the camp is a chance to award about 10 scholarships to children who want to learn basketball.
This will be the first year the camp is held and Bromley, optimistic about its future, said, “as we continue to grow we would like to have multiple camps up and down the coast.”
When asked what Mustang basketball players will be helping out with the camp, Bromley said, “as of right now, I have them all signed up. Some have class, so we’ll work around their schedule.”
Bromley said that it will be important to the campers for the Mustang players to be there.
“You know, they’re the heroes . growing up around here, you go to the Cal Poly games and you can care less about Kevin Bromley or Horace Grant,” Bromley said.
Cal Poly junior guard Dawin Whiten said that as soon as he heard about the camp, he wanted to be a part of it.
“It was a surprise actually because I saw a commercial for it on TV and was like, ‘what is going on?’ It’s a great thing. People tell me I’m a role model and I don’t agree with that because they don’t see me on a daily basis. I’ve become more of an idol. This is an opportunity for me to become a role model.”
Whiten said that he has coached a team before and would like to be a coach “way, way, way down the line. I don’t have the patience right now.”
Bromley said that he expects three types of campers – hardcore campers who really want to improve, recreational campers who want to have fun and campers whose parents are using the camp as a day care.
The challenge, Bromley said, is to “curtail the camp to fit the needs of the individual campers, but the most important thing is to have fun.”
Grant, a Nipomo resident, played 17 NBA seasons from 1987-88 to 2003-04 for the Chicago Bulls, Orlando Magic, Seattle SuperSonics and Los Angeles Lakers.
He won four league titles – three with the Bulls and another with the Lakers.
Grant was an All-Star in 1993-94 with Chicago and made four straight second-team all-defense squads from 1992-93 to 1995-96. He finished his career with averages of 11.2 points, 8.1 rebounds and 1.0 blocks per game.