Having a Ball During Camp : Recreation: Summer basketball training sessions gain popularity among coaches and parents. Youngsters say they have fun while improving their skills.

The temperature was over 100 degrees outdoors and only somewhat cooler inside the La Canada High School gym. But the heat didn’t seem to bother the 90 boys dressed in T-shirts, shorts and basketball shoes who sat on the floor encircling La Canada Coach Tom Hofman.

The boys, ages 7 through 13, looked star-struck as Hofman introduced current and former La Canada players who would serve as counselors during the seventh annual Spartan basketball camp. After a pep talk about working hard, having fun and drinking plenty of water during breaks, the boys lined up in groups.

Not even the din of bouncing basketballs could drown out the excited chatter of the campers.

“This is the third year I’ve been here,” said Peter Deutsch, 11. “It’s fun playing with friends and learning a lot of drills that we can practice at home. This is a good way to spend part of the summer.”

High school and college basketball coaches in the San Gabriel Valley apparently agree. Each year, more and more coaches are overseeing summer camps, which can generate a few to many thousands of dollars in revenue and provide youngsters with a basketball learning experience. Some camps are operated through the local recreation departments, others through the coaches and schools.

La Canada and Glendora are probably the area’s most popular and profitable camps. Both benefit from the high school programs’ consistent success and community support.

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The Spartan camp, for example, has grown from a single one-week session that drew 37 kids to three sessions that are each filled to capacity with 90 campers. The cost is $125.

“Our primary interest in starting the camp was to develop interest in the community,” said Hofman, who has coached eight seasons at La Canada. “But you also hope to develop skills at a young age. I think everyone on last year’s varsity went to the camp at one time or another.”

Bishop Amat High School Coach Alex Acosta oversees a one-week camp that attracted more than 70 campers this summer.

“Mainly, it’s for our incoming freshmen to get a jump on basketball, and we also get a lot of grade-school kids that have brothers and sisters going to the high school,” Acosta said. “The main thing is how much fun they have. Some kids are going to learn something new and others are just going to play around.

“If you have a kid who’s teetering on the edge of whether he’s going to stay in sports, you can help keep him interested by showing him how to play and keeping him out of trouble.”

Most camps include instruction in drills for dribbling, passing, shooting and defense. Contests in free-throw shooting are staples. The focus is on individual development rather than team play.

“At this camp, they stress skills, sportsmanship and what each individual can do,” said Pam Como of La Canada, whose 8-year-old son, Giovanni, is attending the La Canada camp for the first time. “It’s not so much somebody against someone else. I liked that attitude, that you can improve yourself.”

The kids say they enjoy almost every aspect of the experience.

“Shooting baskets, passing, all that stuff,” said Danny McCoy, 7.

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“You can have contests and learn new drills and you can play games at the end of the day,” said Mark Eisen, 8.

Hofman said the counselors are key to a successful camp.

“The person in charge is significant, but you need counselors that are patient and work well with kids,” Hofman said. “The kids in the camp look up to them because they’re former players.” Parents considering sending their child to any basketball camp should talk to others who have attended, Hofman said.

“There’s camps that stress fundamentals and there are camps that stress the celebrities,” Hofman said. “If you go to a camp that has 300 or 400 kids, you’re probably not going to get much individual instruction, but you might have fun rubbing shoulders with some big names.

“Both experiences can be beneficial if they inspire a kid to keep playing and get better.”