Old Titan Posted June 6, 2019 Share Posted June 6, 2019 This is just plain sad. 35 kids; a lot of high school camps draw more: Used to be between 100-200 kids as recently as a few years ago, and for 3-4 weeks (including high school "team" camp). Convinced this is a direct result of the "state of the program" right now. Ought to be different! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Cornelius Posted June 6, 2019 Share Posted June 6, 2019 I don't know any specifics regarding Summer Camp changes between Sutton to Mills but it makes sense that numbers would be down. Still, 30 some odd Kindergarten to 4th grade day campers doesn't sound that bad to me. Last summer there were 105 teams and over 1,000 campers. Numbers aside, I thought it was cool to see Larry Owens out there. Having LO around the program in any way is a great thing; one of my all time favorite players. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Titan Posted June 6, 2019 Author Share Posted June 6, 2019 1 hour ago, Dr. Cornelius said: I don't know any specifics regarding Summer Camp changes between Sutton to Mills but it makes sense that numbers would be down. Still, 30 some odd Kindergarten to 4th grade day campers doesn't sound that bad to me. Last summer there were 105 teams and over 1,000 campers. Numbers aside, I thought it was cool to see Larry Owens out there. Having LO around the program in any way is a great thing; one of my all time favorite players. I'm not just talking about Sutton's camp attendance; I'm talking about ORU summer basketball camps in general. Not sure how Sutton's camp numbers compared to Bill Self's or Barry Hinson's, but Jerry Hale/Lake Kelly/Ken Hayes had FAR bigger numbers at their ORU camps in the 70's & 80's (I know because I was there as a camper/counselor/instructor over the years). There were enough kids that we had 5-man teams in each age group that participated in week-long round-robin play. The instructors included other college coaches, local high school head coaches, and former all-star college players who traveled the summer camp circuit under contract with Converse, Adidas, Reebok, Pony, etc. (remember Pony? And this was just before Nike and UnderArmor got into making basketball shoes and ruining AAU basketball). No summer basketball camp with double-digit number of instructors can consider 35 total campers in attendance as a success, particularly at the college level. These are supposed to be cash-cows to supplement the salaries of the assistant coaches, not non-profit enterprises. Here's hoping the ORU Team Camp enjoys better numbers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ORUalum Posted June 7, 2019 Share Posted June 7, 2019 19 hours ago, Old Titan said: I'm not just talking about Sutton's camp attendance; I'm talking about ORU summer basketball camps in general. Not sure how Sutton's camp numbers compared to Bill Self's or Barry Hinson's, but Jerry Hale/Lake Kelly/Ken Hayes had FAR bigger numbers at their ORU camps in the 70's & 80's (I know because I was there as a camper/counselor/instructor over the years). There were enough kids that we had 5-man teams in each age group that participated in week-long round-robin play. The instructors included other college coaches, local high school head coaches, and former all-star college players who traveled the summer camp circuit under contract with Converse, Adidas, Reebok, Pony, etc. (remember Pony? And this was just before Nike and UnderArmor got into making basketball shoes and ruining AAU basketball). No summer basketball camp with double-digit number of instructors can consider 35 total campers in attendance as a success, particularly at the college level. These are supposed to be cash-cows to supplement the salaries of the assistant coaches, not non-profit enterprises. Here's hoping the ORU Team Camp enjoys better numbers! One thing to remember is that the athletic dept no longer has the OR partner base to market these camps to. My grandparents sent my brother, our cousin and I one year from out of state to attend. They had been mailed brochures since they were partners w/OR and thought it would be fun for us to go. There were at least a couple hundred kids the year we attended in the mid-80's. Not saying it's the only reason for the decline, but it's a reason. I saw that pic and thought it looked pretty sad and wondered if they even made money after paying for the student-athlete counselors. But hey, what a great coach to camper ratio for the kids getting instruction. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ORUJason Posted June 7, 2019 Share Posted June 7, 2019 I think the ORU volleyball camps are still well attended by many high school players from all over Tulsa. I wouldn’t know about any of the other camps though. ORU did have a huge cheerleading camp last weekend and the campers stayed in the dorms (Claudius and I assume EMR for any male cheerleaders). That is a nice recruiting tool for the university. Once the new dorm is done, I would put them in there instead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Titan Posted June 9, 2019 Author Share Posted June 9, 2019 My screen printer just printed over 400 shirts for Ryan Folmar’s upcoming baseball camps, and just under 100 shirts for a one-week basketball camp for a class 2A school system in Rogers County. Here’s a tweet from the Edmond Memorial HS camp this past week; looks like they had pretty good attendance: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Titan Posted June 20, 2019 Author Share Posted June 20, 2019 Last week of ORU Basketball camps: looks like about 60-70 kids for Residential Camp, which is probably not too bad in this day and age: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Titan Posted June 20, 2019 Author Share Posted June 20, 2019 Team Camp schedule, which if you're unfamiliar, is not an instructional camp at all, but simply a round-robin tournament of sorts. Surprised the bigger schools with high-profile players are even able to field teams this time of year, what with the proliferation of summer "travel teams" (often mistakenly called "AAU teams") over the past decade or so: Not a bad list of schools; good to see Booker T. Washington, Broken Arrow, Jenks, and some of the Oklahoma City schools in there. Conspicuously absent are Tulsa Union and Tulsa Memorial; a local coach told me last year there's a rift between those programs and the current ORU staff, but hopefully that's not the case any more and it's just a scheduling thing. Looks like Tulsa Union did participate in the TU team camp three weeks ago: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Titan Posted June 22, 2019 Author Share Posted June 22, 2019 Assistant Coach Steve Upshaw does a LOT of unsung work behind the scenes of ORU Basketball, including the organization of the summer camps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Titan Posted June 22, 2019 Author Share Posted June 22, 2019 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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