St. Joe’s basketball and tennis teams host summer camps
As the calendar turns to summer, a campus bustling with college students empties to make way for the hundreds of kids who attend athletic camps at St. Joe’s.
Each summer, 11 of the school’s varsity sports teams host summer camps on campus with the intention of teaching kids the game and giving kids of a wide range of ages the chance to hone their skills during the summer months.
Two of the most popular of those camps are The Phil Martelli Basketball camps, hosted by the men’s basketball team, and the High Performance Tennis Academy Summer Camp, hosted by the men’s and women’s tennis teams. The tennis camps run for six weekly sessions on the Maguire Campus, while the basketball camps runs seven sessions with five taking place at St. Joe’s and two in Avalon, New Jersey. Both camps are co-ed.
“My summer camps are done to hopefully expose young people to Saint Joseph’s university, to our coaching staff, to our way of teaching, to our way of interacting,” said men’s basketball head coach Phil Martelli. “It gives them a chance to be on and around not only our basketball program but our university.”
Martelli staffs his camps with his current coaching staff along with local high school coaches who are familiar with the program and current players. They host a variety of specialized camps, including an overnight team session, a “Skills and Drills” week, and a Coaches vs. Cancer benefit team camp in which a portion of each team’s payment is donated to the American Cancer Society. A week at camp costs about $225 per week per player, or $600 for a team.
Conor Porth, now a sophomore at Archmere Academy in Wilmington, Delaware, attended Martelli’s camp from fifth to ninth grade. He said the camp helped him to excel on the court, and he saw improvement in his play in just one week.
“When I first started going, I would say I was among the lesser talented at the entire camp,” Porth said. “Towards the end of the week, I felt confident in my abilities and was able to keep up with all the other kids there.”
Martelli also said the camps aim to encapsulate the storied tradition of basketball in the city of Philadelphia that St. Joe’s has always been a part of.
“We’ve used our camps more as a promotion of Philadelphia basketball and a promotion of Saint Joseph’s University,” Martelli said.
Kids from all over flock to St. Joe’s each summer to seek instruction from a coach with Martelli’s reputation. However, Martelli said he sees it more as a symbiotic relationship he has with the kids who come to learn the game of basketball through his eyes.
“I like interacting with people,” Martelli said. “To be around young people who are crazy about the game of basketball gives me a lot of energy.”
The tennis program, which partners with the Bala Cynwyd tennis club High Performance Tennis Academy, is able to combine that professional expertise with the excitement of a college atmosphere
The relationship that head men’s tennis head coach Ian Crookenden and the St. Joe’s tennis program has with HPTA has helped draw kids to the campus. The organization “pulls from their drawing power along with the reputation and name of Saint Joseph’s,” to attract kids to campus in the summer, Crookenden said.
“It helps to give the identity of the sport and Saint Joseph’s so people begin to make that association,” Crookenden said.
The camp, which runs for six weeks, costs $299 a week and is offered to kids of all ages and skill levels. Fifty to 60 kids participate each session.
Gary Cimperman, a staff pro at HPTA, said holding a camp at a school like St. Joe’s offers versatility. The camp makes use of the courts on Maguire Campus as well as the courts on Cardinal Campus by Hagan Arena.
“We have the ability at St. Joe’s to spread out,” Cimperman said. “We can bring in more campers. It helps us get into point play and ultimately develop our players a lot more.”
This relationship has ultimately benefited both parties, as the camp has prospered over the past years.
“For St. Joe’s, it gives them exposure,” Cimperman said. “There are these 16, 17 year-old soon-to-be college kids. They may not play in college, but the camp gives them a little bit of a college feel.”
One aspect of the “college feel” that Cimperman said kids enjoy the most is the food. Tennis campers are treated to lunch in Campion Dining Hall.
“The food is way better at St. Joe’s,” Cimperman said. “The kids really look forward to it.”
Crookenden and Martelli both said they use their camps to focus on passing their wisdom on to campers with a thirst to improve their game. The primary goal then is not to recruit players, but rather to focus on showing the kids the best possible time and teaching the sport they love at the school they call home.
“I want to make it the best experience they’ll have that summer, whether they be in fifth grade or 11th grade,” Martelli said.
