Lucas Gebhart
Sports Editor
For nearly 25 years, former Idaho State basketball player Steve Garrity, has lead, organized and promoted Hoop Camp, a one-day basketball camp dedicated to including and teaching the game to those who possess a wide range of mental and physical disabilities for virtually all ages.
For 24 years, this camp has resided in Portland and has been led by Steve Garrity, and father of current player Hayes Garrity. But earlier this month, Hayes Garrity took the reigns from his father and expanded the non-profit organization to the Gem State, putting together Southeast Idaho’s first-annual Hoop Camp at the Mountain View Events Center two Saturdays ago as part of a project for his master’s program.
“We have been doing it a really long time,” Hayes Garrity said. “It took a lot of work and we hope to be able to make it an annual thing.”
Based off the Portland camp, which Hayes and his two siblings have been a part of for nearly their entire lives, Hayes Garrity said he wanted to put the camp together because he was inspired by his father’s camps.
The campers began the day by forming teams, and then rotated between shooting, rebounding, dribbling, layup and passing stations before going up against each other in a layup contest and facing off in the first of two scrimmages. A free-throw contest and awards rounded out the event.
“The thing you will see is people are so selfless when they are playing the game,” said Hayes’ sister, Hailey Garrity, who currently plays basketball at Big Bend. “Even though they are on the same team, even though they are playing against each other, they still want them to succeed.”
The camp serves as a way for local community members like Bill McBride, who says he has struggled with social anxiety issues his entire life, to meet other community members who struggle with similar, or sometimes, very different types of mental or physical issues while playing a game they love in what he called a safe environment.
“I always become nervous around other people, I don’t know how to act and I’m not very good at reading social cues,” McBride, 48, said. “If people are upset, angry, happy… I just don’t know. I’m afraid I’m going to say something and people will go, ‘what is that?’ But, here, I’m not worried about it. If I say something stupid, no one cares, they might even laugh at it.”
Manning one of the stations, which rotated to the campers, rather than the campers rotating to the coaches, was a now gray-haired, but still towering, seven-year NBA veteran and Idaho State alum, Steve Hayes.
An Aberdeen native, Steve Hayes says he still has family in Southeast Idaho and gets back to Pocatello a couple times a year. Volunteering at Hoop Camp was essentially a no-brainer as both Steve Garrity and Steve Hayes trained together in the summers while Garrity was still going to school.
“We run it just like any normal basketball camp,” Steve Hayes said. “We’re working with them and there’re certain kids who can do some things and others who may not be able to do it, but they are all willing to learn and all are enthusiastic about it.”
Hayes Garrity’s teammates, Brandon Boyd, Jacob McCord and Lyle Sutton also gave up a Saturday to help; as well as Hayes’ wife and ISU volleyball player, Abby Garrity, who had a game against Montana State later that night.
“It’s a pretty easy sell once they know what the event is,” Hayes Garrity said on bringing in some of his teammates. “Everybody loves basketball and everybody on my team would love to help out.”
“Not everybody gets to do this every day, it’s an honor to be here,” Abby Garrity added, who helped lead the Idaho State volleyball team to a 3-2 victory over Montana State later that day. “We’re giving these people an experience they won’t forget and it’s fun.”
The turnout for the first year seemed to be more then Hayes Garrity was expecting. Normally the Portland camp draws around 300 campers and in the first camp in Pocatello over 50 campers came from all over the Southeast Idaho region.
In addition to making the event an annual one, Hayes Garrity hopes to expand the camper outreach down into Utah and over towards Twin Falls, something he said is on the list of improvements for next year’s camp.
“One of the challenges was things moved pretty slowly to start,” he said. “Trying to get the word out is hard. We hit a lot of high schools, middle schools, getting up to Idaho Falls and Twin Falls is tough. Trying to make those connections when you don’t have them is tough.”
McBride said he and his family of four children, who all struggle with varying levels of autism, said it only helps that all the event’s proceeds, most of which is raised through sponsors and donations, go directly back into the program, which keeps the cost down.
“If it costs like 500 bucks we couldn’t do it,” McBride said. “I like that. Whatever they did to keep the cost down is really great.”
McBride said this helped him and his family attend the event because he has been unemployed for a couple years, just one of many problems people with mental and physical disabilities face once out of high school.
“I just can’t hold a job,” McBride said, adding that he donated a small amount. “I don’t have a lot of money and some might have similar issues. Everybody has a chance to do it whether you have money or not.”
Hayes Garrity said that having a good turnout for this year’s event will help future ones, especially if the campers have a good experience. They are counting on news of the camp spreading by word-of-mouth, just as it did in Portland.
“I wish they had more things like this in the community,” McBride said. “It’s a great way to meet other people with disabilities and learn a skill, while feeling comfortable. I think it’s a great thing. If they keep it here, I’ll keep coming.”
