Health and hoops in Nashua: Youngsters learn basics of basketball and nutrition
Aug. 8—Acoach described Tuesday's activities at the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Nashua in terms kids could relate to: It was like your parents letting you eat pizza as long as you ate vegetables with it.
About 100 kids from both the Boys & Girls Club and the Nashua Police Athletic League learned about basketball and how to live healthy from pros in both industries at AmeriHealth Caritas New Hampshire's Healthy Hoops event.
The free program taught kids from age 3-18 the basics of basketball — dribbling, passing and shooting — and educated them on how to eat healthy, managing conditions like asthma and diabetes and to stay away from drugs.
The coach was Joe Richmond, the ambassador of basketball for the 2023 NBA G League champion Delaware Blue Coats, and he brought his brother, Mike, a former Dallas Mavericks draft pick, and three other coaches.
Medical ethicist and public health educator Dr. Glenn Ellis taught kids about being healthy through a game styled after "Jeopardy!" Ellis has been involved with the Healthy Hoops program since AmeriHealth started it more than 20 years ago.
"Their goal is not to teach you basketball," Joe Richmond said during a break from running basketball drills. "Their goal is to teach you about healthy living, healthy attitude, healthy behavior. That's the best part about it. But, you can see, the kids are still engaged."
Aiden Corson, a 10-year-old Nashua resident, said he learned new warm-up stretches at the event and his favorite part was the Jeopardy! game. "I liked all of it," he said.
Benjamin Collins, 10, plays in the Nashua Jr. Biddy Basketball program, so he didn't learn much from the basketball drills. The Nashua resident took a lot away from the Jeopardy! game, though, and said he wants to eat healthy to help him be in better shape for basketball season.
"I had a really fun time," Collins said.
The Richmond brothers and fellow coaches Logan Cook, Kahliah Cooper and Bernard Corey engaged the kids in drills. One exercise involved dribbling once, then bouncing the ball as high in the air as you could while aiming it toward the person across from them.
Mike Richmond, who the Mavericks selected with the 66th overall pick in the 1987 NBA Draft, critiqued the kids' basketball techniques but he and his fellow coaches constantly encouraged them during drills.
"You can never stop motivating them — clap (your) hands, (say), 'Good job, keep up the good work,'" said Mike Richmond, who played center at the University of Texas at El Paso and coached the Harlem Globetrotters' rival Washington Generals for four years. "I hope they take excitement — that they want to be a part of it (basketball), that they want to do it ...
"If they can walk away and say, 'Hey, I like this game,' it makes it easier for the coaches and now they're going to put the work in."
AmeriHealth Caritas New Hampshire President Bill Keena said more than 20,000 kids have participated in the Healthy Hoops program since its inception.
Ellis, a Philadelphia resident, said one of the reasons the program was founded was to teach kids with asthma that they can still play sports if they monitor their condition. Ellis said countless kids over the years with asthma told him during the program's events around the country that they thought they could not play sports.
At the Nashua event, Ellis said a third-grader asked him how to know when they have eaten too many chicken nuggets. He quizzed the kids on healthy eating and taught them how to read nutrition labels.
"This is a very special project that I am involved with ... because this is an opportunity for me and people with the kind of skills that all of us bring to this to put something into young people that we didn't have," Ellis said.
