Herder basketball academy kicks off

Coach Peter Fenster is investing in future Glenrock High School athletes with the first ever Herder Basketball Academy this summer.

“I did run some of these in Tongue River so I decided it would be good for Glenrock,” Fenster said. “We decided a three-day camp doesn’t really build skill, we need something for the whole summer, so we came up with the academy. For as long as I’m here I plan on holding one every summer and hopefully our numbers just grow and grow.”

The camp costs $75 per kid or $150 for families with two or more children. It began this Monday and will be held twice weekly on Mondays and Wednesdays from 6 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. for eight weeks total, teaching boys and girls from fifth to eighth grade the fundamentals of the game. 

Each athlete will also receive a t-shirt and a basketball as long as they attend 75% of the camps, according to the flyer posted on the Herder Pride Facebook page.

The camp will go over every aspect of shooting, ball handling, passing, rebounding, defensive skills and competition. 

They started with shooting, which Fenster says is the hardest skill for a young athlete to learn. He led them through drills focusing on squaring up their shots and following through with their wrist. Towards the end of the session the kids were grouped up and raun through a series of drills where they competed with the other groups. 

“Shooting and developing a consistent follow through is definitely the hardest. Especially with some of the fifth and sixth graders who are just not strong enough yet for the ten-foot hoops. You’ll see some of the smaller kids with real good form close to the hoop, but as soon as they get to the free throw line or the three-point line they start pushing with their hips and stuff like that

“Most of the kids haven’t finished growing so they might grow an inch in a week, so that messes with the shooting and coordination, but they will get more comfortable as they spend more time in the gym.”

Fenster is the head coach for the varsity girls basketball team. He said that the area actually has really good athletes for a town so small, but sometimes the skills are lacking because kids don’t have the opportunity to learn the fundamentals at a young age. 

“We have some real athletic kids in our town, but the skills are often not up to par for the age level. The main goal of this camp is to build those skills up so when they hit high school they’ll have a great foundation to build off of.”