Memphis Grizzlies star Desmond Bane returning to Richmond for 2nd-annual basketball camp

RICHMOND, Ind. — Desmond Bane walked into the Boys and Girls Clubs of Wayne County, and it was as if nothing else mattered. The Seton Catholic all-time leading scorer looked for a clear path across the court, but he was swarmed by half of the couple hundred kids in attendance, all having immediately dropped what they were doing at the sight of the Memphis Grizzlies star.

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Bane slowly made his way to the corner of the gym, and that’s where he stayed for as long as the wall of gawking eyes stood strong in front of him. That’s also where he answered just a small fraction of “probably a thousand” questions he got from Richmond kids that week, questions like:

“What was it like getting dunked on in the playoffs?”

“Where’s Ja Morant (Bane’s all-star teammate in Memphis)?”

“I bet I can beat you one on one.”

That last one wasn’t a question, but Bane said, “that’s all I’ve heard today.” He just smiled and told them, “I’ll bring my shoes tomorrow.”

That was the scene for four straight days last summer during Bane’s inaugural basketball camp, and we’re just a couple weeks away from round two.

The second-annual Desmond Bane Basketball Skills Academy will take place 9 a.m.-12 p.m. July 17-19 at the Earlham College Athletics and Wellness Center (801 W National Rd.) for boys and girls grades 4-8 and high school boys. Registration is $150, and the deadline is July 10. You can sign up on Eventbrite.

“I’ve been smiling all day. It’s been great,” Bane said during last year’s camp. “It’s hard not to smile when you see all these kids in here playing ball.”

Like last year, Taylor Wayer, Bane’s longtime personal trainer and a former walk-on at Indiana University, will help lead the skill instruction alongside a group of established professional coaches and high-level skill development trainers.

Wayer said most of the drills he had kids work on last summer are the same ones Bane has used for years and stressed that Bane repeated those simple drills until he got “very, very good” at them. He tried to get some of the kids to stop shooting — and badly missing — 3-pointers because they hadn’t grown enough to have the strength to shoot like that, but he admitted it’s hard to argue with them when they see Bane shooting threes all the time on TV.

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Wayer had to use Bane to get some leverage with the younger kids last year. Most of the high-schoolers knew Bane before he made it big, so they weren’t as starstruck as the elementary-level campers, but Wayer lost all the younger kids’ attention as soon as Bane showed up.

“Not as much as the big fella,” Wayer said with a laugh of how much the kids listened to him. “It’s hard to have as much pull as he does around here … We’re trying to teach them some stuff this week and get them to have fun, but they were more worried about where Desmond was than the drill we were doing. It is cool to see those young kids look up to him.”

Bane’s impact on the Richmond youth is evident just by looking at all the No. 22 Grizzlies jerseys walking around the community, and that support has multiple layers.

There are some who just think it’s cool that they’re seeing an NBA player, someone they watch on TV, in person. Others, however, understand the deeper side of it. They understand Bane walked the same streets and played in the same gyms as they do, and they feel that connection. That’s why there are now “a ton” of Grizzlies fans in Richmond.

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“Honestly, I think it’s kind of one in the same, and I think that’s part of the draw for him,” Wayer said. “He’s on his way to becoming a superstar in the NBA, so there’s that piece of it, but I think the reason these kids really grasp onto that is he grew up playing in here. You’re at camp in the same gym that built Desmond Bane and allowed him to be where he’s at.”

Last year, Bane cherished the week he spent back in Richmond, catching up with old friends, seeing how much some of the kids had grown and just being around the people who helped him get to where he is today. He couldn’t keep the smile off his face, and that’s why Bane will keep coming back to his hometown.

“It’s what you do it for,” Bane said. “You do it to keep growing your own brand, but being that positive role model for these kids in the community to look up to is priceless.”

For more information on the Desmond Bane Basketball Skills Academy, contact Katherine Cord at kcord@tandemse.com or call 703-740-5023.

Zach Piatt is a reporter for The Palladium-Item. Contact him at zpiatt@gannett.com or on Twitter @zachpiatt13.

This article originally appeared on Richmond Palladium-Item: Second-annual Desmond Bane Basketball Skills Academy approaching