San Marcos hosts annual Rattler Basketball Camp

San Marcos’ basketball program hosted its annual summer Rattler Camp this past week with future San Marcos students visiting the Snake Pit.

There were 71 campers this year with a goal of establishing fundamental basketball and good habits. The morning sessions were two and a half hour workouts with incoming third graders to fifth graders. The afternoon session was a three hour workout which consisted of incoming sixth graders to incoming freshmen.

“(This camp) is something I want to grow,” head coach Thomas Acker said. “It’s great for our program in general. Having the kids in the gym and just giving them a foundation of basketball. Some of this stuff is geared towards what we do. Especially in the afternoon session more so than the younger session. But really we’re just trying to teach them good basketball honestly. Good habits. Things like that.”

Establishing a connection with future students is something that is important and vital to San Marcos’ program. The camp gives the coaching staff at the high school level all the way down to the middle school level an opportunity to connect with the student as an early age. Along with Acker, middle school coaches and recent San Marcos graduate Sam DeLeon aided in the camp.

“Connecting to the students this early is really important,” Acker said. “A goal of mine is to learn all their names and it’s going to continue to be a goal of mine. But I recognize so many faces from last year. We have our middle school staff here too and they do a great job so there’s that connection also. It gives the students a chance to see our coaching staff in action and get to know them.”

There are varying levels of students who attend the camp. But Acker mentioned getting some early hands-on coaching with the incoming freshmen is valuable. As a whole, the goal of the camp is to just teach the game of basketball the right way.

“We try to do it the right way,” Acker said. “We know our way isn’t the only way. But we try to teach the game and have some fun while we’re doing it. We do some contest. A lot of people do camps for different reasons. I want to teach the game and I want (the students) to get a great foundation and hear terminology. The ultimate goal is to just have some fun with the kids. Grow the game the right way and hopefully grow our program while we’re doing that.”