Each July, legendary basketball star and Avery County native Tommy Burleson, in conjunction with the Avery Parks and Recreation Department hosts the annual Tommy Burleson Youth Basketball Camp.Boys and girls ranging from grades 3-12 spend five days at the camp learning fundamental skills such as dribbling, passing, shooting, and defense, but also acquire a wealth of knowledge from the former N.C. State University, U.S. Olympic basketball, and NBA standout.
This year the group of around 35 campers received an official camp t-shirt quoting Scripture from Proverbs 13:6, which reads “Righteousness guards the person of integrity”. The statement is also indicative of the importance Burleson has placed through the years of teaching campers moral truth in addition to basketball principles.
“It’s important to set an example as a role model, and we try to teach kids to be consistent in doing that,” Burleson remarked after Friday’s morning session. “We hope that with the kids who come back each year, we can teach them basketball fundamentals as well as the importance of being a positive role model and person of Christian character.”
Campers were treated to a special event on Friday morning when Tommy’s former North Carolina State teammate David Thompson and his exceptionally basketball gifted nephew and former high school all-star Dion Malachi dropped by.
Thompson spent time speaking to the attentive group of campers, sharing with them his highs and lows in his life from being a top professional draft pick and highly paid athlete to his past difficulties and eventual conquest over substance abuse, and a witness of how his Christian morals guide his life today. Thompson and Malachi also helped with a number of basketball drills, topped off by Dion performing a number of slam dunks to prove that the ability to temporarily defy gravity runs in the family.
Thompson, the man dubbed “Skywalker” because of his purported 48-inch vertical leap and touted by many as the greatest player in the history of Atlantic Coast Conference basketball, has assisted by speaking at over twenty Burleson Basketball Camps through the years because he believes in the significance of teaching not only the right way to play on the court, but also how vital it is to be a productive citizen off the court.
“We’re planting seeds with these kids, and it’s special to see those seeds grow over three or four years and play high school and college football or basketball,” Thompson remarked. “Not every boy and girl will grow to become a college or professional player at a high level, but here at camps like these we can impact those boys and girls to make good choices throughout their lives.”
The camp featured a talented crop of boys and girls who flashed their skill on the hardwood and impressed the instructors immensely.
“I was tickled with the players. A lot of them are skilled, and you can see that they have had parents or teachers or coaches working with them,” Burleson noted. “A number of kids have good jump shots and good jump-stop moves and play good hard defense. You can see that they enjoy the game.”
An intriguing by-product of the longevity of the yearly camp is that a pair of long-time friends in Burleson and Thompson, one of the top 1-2 punches in college basketball history, can continue to maintain close and pass along to kids both their passion for the game that they excelled in and their common compassion for people.
“Our friendship has remained strong through the years as our kids have grown, and we’ve had such an impact on each other’s lives. From going through some of the things we did at North Carolina State, we established a bond that has only grown stronger with not just the two of us, but even our teammates from those years we played together,” Thompson shared.
“This camp is key because it gives us an opportunity to come together here in the mountains,” Burleson stated. ”We knew each other through playing in high school and established a bond in college, and any opportunity for us to come together and get our families together is a blessing. It’s a blessing that he can come to this camp and we can continue to get together like we have through the years.”
