THUNDER BAY – Sara Yaseen is only 10 years old, but is already dreaming of being able to dunk a basketball.
That’s pretty ambitious for a soon-to-be Grade 5 student who had never really played basketball before taking part in a Lakehead Public Schools summer program at Ecole Gron Morgan, where she joined dozens of other kids being taught the fundamentals of the game by a pair of Lakehead Thunderwolves women’s basketball players.
Aside from the chance to play outside in the sun, Sara said she was intrigued by the sport and wanted to learn.
“It looks really interesting,” she said. “I know a lot of people that play basketball, so I was like, why not try it. I tried it and it was fun.”
The immediate goal is to perfect a few basic skills – and maybe an advanced one or two.
“Probably just shooting, or dunks,” Sara said.
Filza Asif, 12, is about to enter Grade 7, and unlike her school-mate Sara, she’s already spent plenty of time on the court, taking part in a number of Thunderwolves basketball camps over the years.
It was pretty cool to have T-Wolves players Hana Whalen and Ally Burke come to their school and teach them a few more skills, she said.
“It’s quite nice of them to take time from their lives to come and teach people basketball when they could be doing other stuff,” Filza said, adding she learned how to dribble the basketball between her legs, not to mention shooting and teamwork.
“I feel like I should practice my long-distance shooting and my defence.”
Whalen, who has been at Lakehead for three years after graduating from Hammarsjkold High School, said the key is keeping it entertaining.
“Keeping it super fun is important. They have a lot of energy, so it keeps them engaged and having fun, especially on a hot day like today, where some of them might not be as comfortable outside kind of distracts from that,” Whalen said.
She’s also hoping to create more interest in the sport.
Canadian basketball has enjoyed a resurgence of late. The Toronto Raptors won the NBA championship in 2019 and there are more Canadian men and women playing at the highest levels of the game than ever before.
Whalen said it’s not hard to see that success trickling down to the youth level.
“We’ve already had our spring league, which ran from May to halfway through June and we had record levels of kids joining the camps. We ended up having to use the new gym, just because we couldn’t fit all the kids we had in our gym,” Whalen said.
“It’s pretty cool because I’ve never seen that many kids at the camps, so it’s awesome that we can keep expanding that.”
Students taking part in the summer program, which are offered at several public schools, get a well rounded lesson plan that includes academic work, everyday skills like cooking and arts and crafts, in addition to field trips and sporting activities like basketball.
