By MATT ROCHINSKI
bobcatsbasketball.com
July 19, 2007

AU Basketball School/HoopTee Gallery

GREENSBORO – Twenty-three years ago, not even Fred Whitfield could have known the impact his decision would have on thousands of young athletes who would one day take the courts in his hometown of Greensboro, North Carolina.

Long before he became President & Chief Operating Officer of the Charlotte Bobcats, Whitfield chose to start a basketball camp unlike any offered around the country.

He opted to create a camp that would not only teach the fundamentals of basketball, but even more importantly, would educate its participants on the importance of academic achievement and the distinct value of drug awareness.

Thus, the Achievements Unlimited Basketball School was born.

“We started this thing 23 years ago because I wanted to come back to my hometown of Greensboro and find a way to connect with the kids in the local community,” said Whitfield at the Greensboro Sportsplex this week. “We wanted to give them a chance to learn some great fundamental skills of the game of basketball, but to also teach these kids that education is critical if they want to be successful in life.

“Education has provided me with every opportunity I’ve ever had in my career. I try to encourage these kids to have the same dream that I did – to be a professional athlete, but if you aren’t quite good enough, hopefully you can hone your basketball skills so you can get a scholarship and go to college for free, as I did. Then you can find your own place in society where you can add value, have a great career and have fun every day you go to work.”

The Achievements Unlimited Basketball School helps guide its campers by keeping the coach-to-camper ratio to 1:8, allowing for more hands-on experience with every child who attends the camp. The small ratio also warrants more study time between drills and games as the coaches quiz the campers on the list of 10 academically challenging vocabulary words, which they are required to define, study and memorize over the course of the week-long camp.

“All of the kids are tested on the vocabulary words in the latter part of the week," said 18-year AU coach Billy Martin. “If you don’t score well on the test, you can hurt yourself with any kind of team or individual awards that you may receive towards the end of camp. We combine total scores on the court with the scores from the tests to get our final results. You can’t have basketball without academics.”

Whitfield also wanted to express the importance of education at camp’s end, so when he got together with his close friend and Assistant Camp Director Fred Glover years ago, they opted for an even more original rewards system.

“A lot of camps give out trophies to the kids, but we wanted to do something different because we stress academics and the student-athlete,” said Glover. “Our awards are Jordan Brand backpacks and autographed dictionaries signed by each of our celebrity guest speakers – guys like Emeka Okafor, Raymond Felton, Antawn Jamison (Wizards), Chris Paul (Hornets) and Roy Williams (Detroit Lions) to name a few. We really want to stress academics because everybody wants to be a professional basketball player, but that isn’t going to happen, it’s not reality. But if everybody gets a good education, they can be very successful in life.”

But that isn’t all. AU isn’t just about basketball and education. It is also about heightening each camper’s knowledge of drug awareness.

Not only are the campers graced with the presence of numerous guest speakers who work to educate and inspire them, but counselors from the Alcohol and Drug Services of Greensboro are on-site to inform each individual student on the dangers of drugs and drug abuse.

It is a cause that is close to Whitfield’s heart – so close in fact, it was one of the original ideas Whitfield had for why to create the camp 23 years ago.

“I lost five of my 12 teammates that played on my first basketball team because of drug use – whether they overdosed or were murdered in a drug-related incident,” Whitfield recalled. “That was the thing that really pushed me to do this camp, because I didn’t want to see all these young kids in Greensboro follow in the footsteps that a lot of my teammates made and find themselves dead before they were 30 years old.”

Judging by the smiles on the faces of the campers during drills and games, the deep thought each child seemed to be in while reviewing their vocabulary words and the looks of awe that each guest drew as they talked of their life experiences, Whitfield need not worry about which direction his campers are headed.

At AU they are on the right track.

Whitfield also makes sure not to omit anyone from the chance to come and learn in the camp. Of the 300-plus campers who participated in the camp, Whitfield gave out approximately 200 camp scholarships to underprivileged and inner city youth. Sponsor Friedman, Billings and Ramsey, Inc. co-hosted a delegation of 25 Arab-Israeli, Jewish-Israeli and Palestinian youth and their coaches in conjunction with PeacePlayers International.

“It’s really amazing because this is a day/commuter camp,” Whitfield said. “So for us to have 20-30 out-of-state kids whose parents bring them in, get a hotel and spend their vacation here says a lot. We usually have 15-20 states represented here, and we’re also represented internationally now.”

To help fund the numerous scholarships, Whitfield also held the Sixth HoopTee Celebrity Golf Classic, bringing together some of the most influential personalities in the world of sports, business and entertainment for two full days of golf.

“A lot of celebrities like Michael Jordan, Alonzo Mourning and Joe Morgan, who are great friends of mine, want to find a way to stay connected to AU, and the HoopTee Celebrity Golf Classic is a way for them to come in and help provide the opportunity for kids to come in and enjoy a week of camp,” Whitfield said. “The other thing my brother and I have been able to do is fund an endowed scholarship to my mom’s alma mater right here in Greensboro – Bennett College. We endowed the scholarship two years ago to celebrate my parent’s wedding anniversary, and we fund that scholarship through HoopTee and Achievements Unlimited.”

Carroll was one of the numerous celebrities at the HoopTee golf event this week and could not have been more impressed with Whitfield’s overall event.

“It’s a great cause, and Fred has been doing this for so long that I was excited to be a part of it,” said Carroll. “To touch all these kids lives and see how excited they are when you can give back to them. Fred is giving them the chance to be around NBA basketball players and some of the other celebrities out here that really care about them. I think that really gives them a positive influence in their lives, which is what any kid really needs.”

Twenty-three years after opening the Achievements Unlimited Basketball School, you might see Whitfield striding through the Greensboro Sportsplex or beaming from ear-to-ear while driving around on a golf cart at the Grandover Resort.

It doesn’t take much to realize how proud Whitfield is of what he and all of those around him have accomplished. They’ve come a long way from having to walk to the five separate gymnasiums the camp was originally split among, and things don’t appear to be slowing down.

“My goal is to try and make it to at least 25 years,” Whitfield laughed. “My hope is that this camp will have a legacy – that every kid who came through here understood that we gave them the best basketball fundamental instruction, but we also made them aware that to really round out their lives, they have to really study hard and look to achieve academically. That opens all the doors for them professionally down the road, but they also need to understand they need to be drug free and stay away from gangs.

“I just want this to be a camp about life lessons and how to be successful, regardless of your socioeconomic background or who your parents are – that if you work hard, study hard and play hard, you have a chance to do anything that you want to do in life. That’s my goal.”