SIUSLAW NEWS | SATURDAY, JUNE 22, 2019 | 3B
Mapleton
from 1B
grader Bellamy said as she
stole the ball Jack was
holding. “My real name is
Violet, but all the people
call me Bellamy.”
Why did she like steal-
ing the ball?
“Because it’s fun and the
only thing I can do well.”
Bellamy didn’t want to
play basketball when she
got older, she said. She
was at camp just to have
fun and take the ball.
Jude, however, was
there to hone her skills.
“It’s my favorite sport and
I’m trying to get better at
dribbling and shooting,”
the
second-going-on-
third grader said. “I love
to shoot hoops and play
against people.”
So far in the camp, Jude
had learned to dribble
between her legs, dribble
behind her, “and I also
learned to dribble with
both hands,” she said.
“Left hand, then right
hand. Then one hand.”
Her favorite part of the
game was trying to keep
the ball away from kids
like Bellamy, who just
want to steal the ball.
“I don't know if when I
grow up I want to be a
basketball player, but defi-
nitely I want to play in
high school,” she said.
And that is the whole
point of the camp, which
had 35 kids register, equal
to one-fifth of the entire
Mapleton
Elementary
School program.
“We’re rebuilding the
basketball program,” said
Mapleton High School
science teacher Lou
Burruss, who organized
the camp. “The school is
new and beautiful. We
also want the programs,
JARED ANDERSON/SIUSLAW NEWS
Mapleton first-grader Violet, aka “Bellamy” (left), works to steal the ball from fellow elementary student Jack. Both were among 35 kids
who registered to participate in last week's basketball camp hosted in Mapleton.
and what we offer to kids,
to be equally great.”
The Mapleton basket-
ball program has had
tough times as of late. It
went through 57 straight
losses before it finally won
two games this year.
“Two and a half years
without a win,” Burruss
said. “It’s been a long
time.”
The boys’ program has
been more up and down.
“This year, they lost a
handful of games by a bas-
ket or two. It was really
close, and if it had gone
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the other way — they
would have gone to state.
But they’re still in the pro-
cess of building a long-
term sustainable pro-
gram.”
There are two main
problems facing the pro-
gram, with the first being
enrollment.
“Small school,” Burruss
said. “As an example, the
fifth-grade class has one
girl. That just happens
sometimes, where ran-
domly there will be sec-
tions where there aren’t
that many kids. That puts
a lot of stress on a pro-
gram to try and maintain
longevity.”
This is not to say that
the 1A level of the school
is a setback. In fact,
Burruss sees it as an
advantage.
“You can be small and
still be a really successful
basketball player,” he said.
“It’s not like playing for
Marist or South Eugene,
where if you’re not 6’ 2”,
don’t
even
bother.
Basketball is a combina-
tion of skill and athleti-
cism, physicality and
intelligence. It’s a nicely
balanced game as it
demands all those things
of you. But because it has
all those different facets, it
allows you to be successful
taking different paths. You
can be a cerebral player
and be successful. Or you
can be an athletic player
and be successful. There’s
opportunity for all sorts of
kids.”
The real issue facing the
program is the lack of
interest in sports at an
early age.
“What we realized is, in
order to close to gap at
that level, we have to have
a youth camp,” said
Mapleton football coach
Jeff Greene, who volun-
teered to help with the
basketball camp. “We’ve
got to get them started
early, so that at middle
school/high school, we
can teach them more like
strategy. Xs and Os, that
kind of thing, rather than
working on the funda-
mentals. They’ve got to
have the fundamentals.
Not having a youth pro-
gram a while back, you
can see it. The fundamen-
tals are not as sharp as
they should be. It’s just not
there yet. So high school
coaches have to spend
more on fundamentals
than other things that
matter. We need to get it
into their DNA when
they’re little.”
Youth sports camps, the
kinds that focus on instill-
ing sports ethics in ele-
mentary-aged students,
had been absent from
Mapleton for more than
20 years.
“For a long time, if you
were a kid who wanted to
play basketball, there was
no organized basketball
until you were a sixth
grader,” Burruss said.
“That’s really late to build
skills and love for the
game. There may have
been individual kids who
had an older brother to
play with, but in terms of
getting a whole group of
kids excited and talented?
That was challenging.”
Greene noticed the
same trend. “To like
sports, you’ve got to devel-
op it early. If you don’t
have that, and you get
these kids up in middle
school and high school,
there’s no desire. If you’ve
never really done it, you
don’t have anything to
relate to. If you’re not good
at it because you didn’t do
it when you were little,
then you don’t want to do
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it. Usually, if you don’t like
something, it’s because it’s
hard or you’re not good at
it. The interest goes away a
lot faster.”
And in the age of instant
gratification, where hard
questions can be quickly
answered with a search of
a smart phone, interest is
even more fleeting.
“If it’s hard, they’re not
going to want to do it,”
Greene said. “Being good
at something means get-
ting good at it. Sports
teaches that it’s not hand-
ed to you. Hopefully they
learned a work ethic from
mom and dad, that if you
want to be good at some-
thing you have to work at
it. It’s like the player you
are now and the player
you want to be. How do
you get there? If you don’t
want to work, you aren’t
going to ger there.”
And in sports, you have
to work with each other.
“There’s less interaction
with kids than there was
before cell phones,”
Greene said. “You know,
social media, video games.
If they’re off their phones,
doing something healthy,
it’s the interaction that
they’re
developing.
Communicating face to
face rather than with a
text. It’s nice to have some-
thing in the summer they
can do, and something
that’s fun for them. And
they can work on these
skills.”
So, over the past few
years, Mapleton has been
rebuilding the programs.
“Last year we had nine
youth teams, going from
kindergarten little league
all the way up to sixth
grade where 50 kids par-
ticipated,” Burruss said. “A
lot of those kids are here
playing basketball this
week.”
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from 1B
National Forest presenta-
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Visitor Center theater.
• Tuesdays, Wednesdays
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Explore a variety of nat-
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Giant Spruce Trail, Dis-
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Recent graduates stayed
around to help coach, and
Mapleton teachers such as
Greene and Juline Walker
signed up as well. Dan
Gray, who coached bas-
ketball in at Siuslaw High
School for over 20 years,
also stepped up.
As did the community.
The basketball camp was
able to get a $500 grant
from
the
Mapleton
Community Foundation
to feed the kids lunch.
After discovering the high
school gym was closed for
repair on the floor, the
local Lions Club donated
the use of their facility.
And school staff, includ-
ing High School Principal
Brenda Moyer, remained
throughout the day to
make sure the camp ran
smoothly.
And the results appear
to be working. Second
grader Zachary used the
camp to get out of the
house during the summer.
“I want to play with my
friends,” he said when
asked why he was there. “I
like basketball and I’m
super fast. I can go super
fast when they try and go
to the hoop and I can try
and steal the ball when I’m
running super fast. I steal
people’s ball in soccer, too.
My favorite sport is soc-
cer.”
As
for
building
Mapleton’s basketball pro-
gram? First grader Tinsley
is already hooked.
“It’s my favorite sport,”
she said, wanting to play
on the high school team
when she grows up. Her
favorite part of the game is
shooting the ball.
“You have to spin the
ball when you shoot,” she
said, lifting her arm up
and tilting her hand.
Perfect form for Mapleton’s
athletic future.
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All events are free, but
a Northwest Forest Pass,
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