ARCANUM – The Arcanum boys basketball program under the leadership if first year head varsity coach, Kevin Brackman broke the century mark in attendance for the 2023 Trojans boys basketball camp.
“As a first year coach you don’t always know the community support you’ll get in a tight knit community like this but I was very pleased with the support,” said Coach Brackman. “By the end of camp we had 117 of our youth, players come out and we hope that they come back next year – that’s the goal.”
Helping Coach Brackman at the four day camp was his coaching staff along with the high school basketball players. The camp had 7th-8th grade two hour morning sessions and 1st-6th grade two hour afternoon sessions.
“Towards the end of the week we were getting them in positions to let them lead and work on some skills that they really don’t know that they are working,” Brackman said of his high school helpers. “So watching them, putting them in roles that maybe they’re uncomfortable with but then watching them thrive in those roles.”
“There are a lot of fun kids, and to work with them and see them improve throughout the week is the joy in doing this every year,” said incoming senior Caleb Burke. “I’m grateful to do it for four years now. We had a great group this year and I’m looking forward to see them getting in high school.”
“The highlight of this camp for me would definitely be the competitiveness between all the grades,” said incoming senior Brady Lock. “There’s just so many kids just going at it. We had a lot of kids competing and trying to get better. There is a lot of talent coming up, a lot of tall guys, a lot of good point guards coming up so we are definitely looking forward to coaching them and getting them ready for high school.”
Coach Brackman took time to thank his coaching staff for the support he received in his first season as a head varsity coach.
“I couldn’t have done it without our coaches,” he stated. “Colton Troutwine, Coach Ben Ackers, Coach Chey Kramer and Coach Jesse Warner.”
“Those guys – we have been planning this for the last couple months,” Coach Brackman continued. “As we started to watch numbers come in, our spread sheet of kids enrolled just kept growing and growing and growing. When it hit over 100 we knew that that we were going to have our hands full but in a good way. I can’t thank them enough and for the work they put in. Things ran smoothly because of it.”
“Our older kids, our younger kids had fun,” Brackman concluded. “All in all it went really well.”
