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Sami Sadler
Ms. Tillery
Brit Lit/Comp
16 April 2012
Senior Project Speech
There are many perks to being a student athlete. There are 338 division 1
programs who give out 15 full scholarships each and there are 291 division 2 programs
who give out 10 full or partial scholarships each. Hello my name is Sami Sadler. For my
senior project I decided to organize and run a basketball camp. There were two parts to
my camp. There was the actual camp that the athletes went to and then there was a
seminar on college exposure for the parents. (College exposure is when girls go to
tournaments or camps to get seen by college coaches and recruiters.)
My product was the basketball camp and parent seminar. For the parent seminar I
had two speakers come to speak to the parents. Bruce Price, the founder of Peak
Performance (basketball organization), and Kim Sadler, the mother of two basketball
players who are very active in the college exposure basketball world. Bruce Price was a
very important speaker to me because he is the one who introduced me to the world of
college exposure basketball and taught me all I know. He is very successful as well, he
started his own basketball organization. Peak Performance. Also he has had a daughter
who has played basketball at the college level so he knows what it takes to get your
daughter to play on the colligate level. I chose to have Kim Sadler speak at my camp
because she has done a lot of research on college exposure basketball and how to get your
daughter seen. Then I had to find people to help me train the girls at the camp. I decided
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that I didn’t want to get coaches to help me I wanted older players, that’s when I called a
teammate of mine named Mackensie Block and my sister, Alex Sadler. Makensie plays
for a well known college exposure team, she also is the starting guard for Woodstock
High School. She is a very hard working, strong minded girl who is very dedicated to her
play. This is why she was a great person to help me with my camp. I also had Alex Sadler
help me with my camp because she is a very talented athlete who the other girls can
relate to well. Alex Sadler has played for some very well known teams for some very
well known organizations.
I chose to run and organize a basketball camp because I have had all sorts of
experiences and I want to share them with others.
There was a lot of work put into my camp. I started by looking for a venue and I
finally decided on All Tournaments Players Park (ATPP). I decided ATPP was a good
place for me to hold my camp because I could get a gym and a meeting room for $150
dollars. I then had to go and talk to the owner to set a date and time for my camp. They
did not have a lot of available gym time, which was very aggravating for me because we
could not set a date. So I then waited and went back a week later. When I went back we
found a date that would work so that then became the date of my camp. We decided that
February 19, 2012 from 2-5pm would be the time my camp would take place. I then
emailed some coaches I knew to see if any of them were interested and available to speak
at my camp. This was a big challenge for me because no one immediately emailed me
back and I had to email quite a few people. I then had two people respond to me and were
interested in speaking. Next I found two girls I knew to help me train the athletes at my
camp. This was the easy part because a lot of people were willing to help me. The next
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thing I had to do was find a way to get the word out about my camp. That is when I
decided to make fliers and a Facebook event page. Once I finished making my fliers I
started emailing them out to basketball coaches I know and a list of athletes I had email
addresses for. I also posted the link to my Facebook event page all over my Facebook and
my friends Facebook’s. It was a bit annoying for me when I was trying to get the word
out because I did not feel like I was getting the word out well. The next thing I needed to
do for my camp was make a sheet I could hand out to all of the parents with all sorts of
facts about getting their daughter seen and scholarships. As the date of my camp started
to creep up I then needed to make a schedule for my camp. I had to manage out time and
decided what activities to do, when to do them, and how long to do them for. I then had
to email all my helpers once again to make sure they remembered the camp was coming
up and I sent them the schedule for the camp. I then got some bad news that one of my
trainers got hurt and could not come help at my camp and I also had one of my speakers
back out at the last minute. I then had to frantically call people I knew to try to get
someone to come speak at my camp. That’s when my mom stepped in and said she would
speak at my camp for me.
My project facilitator was Brandon Clay. Brandon Clay was a good person to be
my project facilitator because he runs a recruiting service. My facilitator was a great
person to help me however he did not help me much through out the process.
My research paper was about how exercise helps children. It relates to my project
because sports are a great way for kids to get exercise. My research paper did not go
closely with my project, however I did learn a ton from doing all my research about
children and exercise. Something I found interesting is that exercise has many benefits on
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kids like keeping them at a good weight, teaching the life lessons, and setting them up for
a healthy life. Another thing I found interesting was 42% of children in the nation get
more exercise during recess then they do in physical education class.
I learned that it takes a lot of hard work and dedication to do this as a career.
However, I do plan on studying sports management in college and go on to pursue a
career in the field.
