Rockford All Star Basketball Camp gives camp scholarships to two Belvidere students

By Kathryn Menue

Editor

BELVIDERE – The Rockford All Star Basketball Camp will return to Belvidere North High School July 11 through July 15.

To give back to the Belvidere and Boone County community for providing the camp with such a wonderful facility, Bill Wilhelmi and Dale Greenlee, the heads of the Rockford All Star Basketball Camp, decided to hold an essay contest where Boone County elementary and middle school students would have a chance to win a free scholarship to attend the Rockford All Star Basketball Camp.

One boy and one girl won a scholarship to the camp by entering the March Madness Essay Contest and answering one of these two prompts:

If you have attended the camp, what was so memorable about it?

If you have not attended the camp, why would you like to?

With the contest being open from March 1 through March 18, students waited in anticipation to hear the winners. Students turned their essays into Belvidere South Middle School (BSMS) teacher, Brian Hayes, who has been a long time from of Wilhelmi.

“My heartstrings tore at kids who never had a chance to go [to camp]. They got excited about the opportunity,” Hayes said.

During Spring Break, Wilhelmi and Greenlee decided on the two winners and announced them the day students returned to school, Monday, April 4.

“They were all good entries,” Hayes said, but a few stood out above the rest.

Na’Shaun Reese, a fourth grader from Perry Elementary, and A’Shanae Thomas, an eighth grader from BSMS, won the March Madness Essay contest and a free scholarship to this year’s basketball camp.

Both entries focused on the second prompt, where they would like to go to the basketball camp, since they’ve never had the opportunity.

Hayes said Reese’s and Thomas’ entries really “shined.”

“Na’Shaun – He was going to be a hard one to top,” Hayes said.

The basketball camp directors chose Reese’s entry over his enthusiasm for the game. Reese wrote about his time on the YMCA basketball team and how much it meant to him.

“I would really like to attend your basketball camp this summer. I know I need to improve my overall game to help my teammates and myself. My shooting game especially needs to improve…” Reese wrote. “I want to eventually earn a basketball scholarship for college. I believe going to basketball camp will help me on this journey.”

“A’Shanae was nervously asking about it before Spring Break,” Hayes said. To Wilhelmi, the decision was an easy one, so Thomas had nothing to worry about from her heartfelt entry.

“I have never been so motivated to want to wake up in the summer and say ‘Hey, I want to do something’ until I got the papers for this basketball camp. I think that I would have a larger chance to succeed because there are a lot of things in my life that are pulling me down and feeling insecure, but basketball does the opposite for me; it excites me; it gives me something that no person could ever do: true happiness,” Thomas wrote.

“Basketball has been the only thing that is keeping me sane with high school coming, eighth grade graduation, problems at home, and losing my mom and dad when I need them most of all. I have done tons of sports…and yet, none of them make me feel the way basketball does…when I have the ball in my hands, it’s like I’m in an entirely different world. Thank you for giving me a motivation in life.”

Both were excited to hear that they’d won.

“He [Na’Shaun] is just so pumped,” Hayes said. “You don’t see him without his basketball. He is so attached to it. He’s just charged.”

Hayes was proud that his student, Thomas, was picked as well.

“For A’Shanae, I announced it in class. The class was really happy for her,” Hayes said. “She was blown away. She was bursting. It was great to put a smile on her face. I’m really excited for her,” especially since Thomas is still learning the game and will benefit greatly from the coaches at the camp.

Thomas played on the BSMS girls’ basketball team, but would still like to learn more about the game.

“Here is a week of great structure with wonderful talent,” Hayes said. “What an honor to be taught by real professionals in the field.”

The great talent not only includes the staff at the basketball camp, but guest speaker Ronny Fields, a former NBA Chicago Bulls basketball player.

“They’re going to have a role model right in front of them,” Hayes said.

The camp will also provide them with shooting, ball handling, rebounding instruction; drills and game play situation instruction; offensive and defensive instruction; an emphasis on sportsmanship and a positive attitude; and much more.

With so much success from the first year of the essay contest, the Rockford All Star Basketball Camp plans to offer the scholarship again next year.

“We’re hoping next year for a slightly bigger turnout,” Hayes said. He said they may do the competition earlier next year, since March was a chaotic month for students who were focusing on state testing and Spring Break.

For now, the Rockford All Star Basketball Camp made two Belvidere students happy and waiting in anticipation for the summer of their dreams.