Hoops Community Helping Out
(St. Louis, MO) – We all need friends. As we scan the social media pages of the various basketball programs we cover, you see coaches and players lending a hand. Food drives, basketball clinics and cleaning up the local park are activities that should be praised and help those young athletes learn to ‘pay-it-forward’ or to ‘give back’.
When I’m not diving deep into the Missouri Valley and Ohio Valley Conference basketball teams and seasons, I run a summer camp. Kids of Victory Camps is one my life passions. Our camp weeks are highly competitive, energetic and point campers to the biblical values of loving God and neighbor.
We break even or lose a little money every summer and somehow, through the generosity of others we’re growing and paying all the bills.
Our teen camp reaches nearly 400 middle and high school students. Our grade school camp hosts over 1,300. KOV hires more than a dozen college interns each summer to help us run the camp and to teach them life-skills of servant leadership.
We have a blast!
We All Need Friends
Today (August 9) we’re hosting our second ‘Best Days of Summer’ fund-raising trivia night. This article is not an invitation to come, nor to give money. It’s a small way for me to say ‘thank you’. Asking friends for help is sometimes awkward and difficult.
But I’m grateful to friends at the Missouri Valley Conference office, Lindenwood University, Saint Louis University and Missouri Baptist for their volunteered support! There are others I should mention. Our friends at Rhymes Heating and Cooling and La Cosecha Coffee have gone above and beyond.
For the second straight year the Valley office donated ‘Arch Madness’ passes. SLU offered multiple free tickets to Billiken basketball games. Lindenwood sends us tickets to basketball, football and hockey contests along with some swag! Out of nowhere, yesterday I was notified that Missouri Baptist Athletics made a straight up financial donation.
While I used to be MBU’s football and basketball announcer, three of our former interns and one current member of our summer staff attend that great university.
Two of our current interns are at SLU!
AD Jason Coomer and Lindenwood bends over backwards to lend a hand. Mike Kern, Jack Watkins and Jimmy Heisner at the Valley office make it amazingly easy. Brian Kunderman at Saint Louis University, enthusiastically jumps into the cause. My old friend Kevin Paulus at MBU is always in my corner.
All these friends have been incredibly gracious to me and our endeavor to build up the younger generation!
I just wanted to say ‘thanks’!
Do Good
Twitter Feed
Opening round of #ArchMadness is today. The only quarterfinal we know is @UIC_MBB v @RacersHoops tomorrow at 2:30. We look at their contrasting styles heading into the @MVCsports tournament. #FatherHarry
Don't look now, but @BustingBrackets tells us some of the hottest teams coming into #ArchMadness aren't the teams at the top of the bracket. @ValpoBasketball, @SIU_Basketball & @UNImbb shouldn't be overlooked. #FatherHarry
ICYMI: @BelmontMBB & @BradleyUMBB are two of the best at being committed to development and succeeding at the same time. #ArchMadness
Congrats to @RogerPowellJr, @CoachJonny_B & @NdotSmitty being named to the Ben Jobe Award finalist list. Well deserved!
