JON HELGASON/ Arizona Summer Wildcat Coach Dustin Miller (center) shows two Lute Olson basketball campers, 15-year-old Aaron Herrera Jr. of Peoria and Josh Miller, 16, of Sahuarita, the right way to get down in a defensive stance yesterday in McKale Center. This is the 20th summer the camp has been held.

youngsters pack McKale to learn from a hall of famer

Observing basketball drills from the edge of the court that bears his name, itâs clear that even through the summer UA head coach Lute Olson rarely finds a break in his coaching schedule.

Yet for a few weeks in June, the silver-haired coaching legendâs focus temporarily shifts from tutoring his preseason top-ranked Wildcats to preaching basketball fundamentals to some future Wildcat hopefuls.

Lute Olson basketball camp is in the midst of its final weeklong session of the summer and once again has brought hundreds of youths to the UA campus to fine-tune their basketball skills.

As the 430 students in this weekâs talent pool range from eight-to-17-year-olds, the Wildcats coaching staff oversees the operation of the camp that is run hands-on by high school, junior college, and even some Division II coaches.

From the campâs opening day, which includes UA associate head coach and co-director of camp Jim Rosborough introducing the Arizona ãcampä offense to players, to a Q&A with Olson towards the end of the week, campers are offered a rather unique basketball experience.

Nearing the conclusion of its 20th summer of operation, UA Coordinator of Basketball Operations and camp co-director Ryan Hansen said there is no question what exists as the primary reason for the campâs continued popularity.

ãClearly, number one, we have a hall of fame coach,ä said Hansen, who was involved with the camp for five summers before joining Olsonâs staff. ãHaving Lute Olson, itâs his camp and everything that emanates from him is seen through the structure of the camp.ä

Once again Olsonâs camp has attracted players from all corners of the country ÷ and even beyond.

Although Hansen said 75 percent of the campers are from Arizona, last weekâs group included a youngster from Japan, as well as the busloads of players that annually make the trip north from Mexico.

Ricardo Soto, 40, a youth basketball coach from Los Mochis, Sinaloa, Mexico has brought talent from south of the border for over a decade. Since 1991, Soto has returned to Tucson every summer to expose a handful of his players to Arizonaâs prestigious camp.

ãThe camp has been very good for my players,ä Soto said.

ãCoach Olson and Rosborough are great people and they teach excellent drills. The kids learn proper positioning and all the fundamentals,ä Soto said.

While a plethora of talented coaches work with developing the youngsters, Hansen said that the program benefits the Tucson community in ways that far exceed playing basketball.

ãNinety-eight-to-99 percent of the kids at this camp are never going to play at this level, but (through the camp) we are really able to give back to the community and provide an opportunity to get kids on campus ÷ maybe not to be future basketball players, but to be future students.

ãAnd thatâs something that we havenât done any research on, but it would be interesting to find out how many students actually got their first look at Arizonaâs campus because they stayed in a dorm at Luteâs camps.ä

Something much easier to calculate has been the number of campers who progress into future Wildcat players.

There has been the occasional, say, Sean Elliot or Channing Frye, former Olson camp attendees who developed into stars for the Wildcats.

But for the majority of campers, Coach Olsonâs camp is about developing basketball skills in the most positive of environments.

ãIf I tried to put it under my name, weâd be lucky to have three kids, but clearly itâs because of his success here,ä Hansen said.