Summer Training- Pure Sweat Basketball

My entire month of June consisted of 3 weeks of summer school that earned me 6 credits hours on my Master’s degree and 4 weeks of BUTLER Basketball Camp.  That translates into waking up at 6am, driving to campus, working camp from 8-4pm, running to class beginning at 4:30, leaving class at 9:30, and driving home.  Seems long but I really enjoyed it because I was meeting all new people and getting acclimated to Butler.

Since 2009 I have been very, very fortunate to be involved with Pure Sweat Basketball (www.puresweatbasketball.com) as a skills trainer.  I have been able to teach young men and women specific, esoteric skills to improve their tangible and intangible games.  This past week we were in charge of instructing the entire skills training portion of the Reebok Breakout Challenge in Philadelphia, PA.  The site was in a beautiful part of Philly north of downtown.  During some of the drills John Wall laced ‘em up and competed with some of the campers.  His presence really elevated the intensity level of the other players.  My thought on John Wall up-close: HE”S FAST!  It was a lot of fun to be a part of the event and get to be around one of my best friends and Pure Sweat owner, Drew Hanlen.  I want to give a shout-out to Webster Groves HS coach Jay Blossom whom I met there as well.  He and I both possess probably too much random fact knowledge and we stayed up late grilling each other with questions.  In my time with Pure Sweat I have been able to develop a much wider range of drills to use, teaching points stress, and teaching strategies to implement.  Being able to experiment with new drills and use alternative strategies of teaching style in workouts over the past 2 years has helped me better philosophize what will one day me our task…How to form a team.

I would also like to give a shout-out to my friend, and Temple manager Mitch Smucker.  He’s a Philly kid who came and visited me at the Reebok event and had dinner with me one night.  Next up for me is the Rising Coaches Elite conference in Las Vegas, NV starting next week.  I will definitely have a detailed blog about what took place at the event.

Assist,

T.J. Saint