Shot Doctor Matt Sanders was the recent guest at the City of Brewton basketball camp at T.R. Miller High School this past week. Sanders has been working with the Shot Doctor camp for 12 years.
“I got my start as a college graduate,” Sanders said. “The guy I worked for actually worked for Shot Doctor at the time and actually recommended me for the job. There is about 15 of us around the country, and it could be more. There are only four that I know in person as we are kind of all over the place. My first Shot Doctor was in Seattle and this is my fourth one in Alabama with two in Arab and another one right down the road from Arab.”
While not with Shot Doctor, Sanders is a women’s basketball coach in north Georgia at Truett-McConnell—a four-year NAIA school about an hour north of Atlanta.
“The camps are one to four day camps,” he said. “This one here is a two-and-a-half day camp. It involves the teaching of the proper shooting technique from the top to the bottom and the bottom to the top. From the feet and the hands to the whole thing. What separates us is that we video their shot so that the players and the coaches have something to go back to. We show it to them and they get to look at the mistakes they make and adjust to the proper form.”
While his time in Brewton was brief, he liked what he saw.
“I have only been here one day and I am impressed with (coach Ron Jackson),” Sanders said. “I did not know I was walking into hallowed halls here. The company is kind of run like a pretty big business. My boss is someone I have never really met in person, but coach Jackson is the go-between. The coach goes on the website and talks to the boss and they called me and asked if I could do the camp. I kind of work in a regional area between North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee.”
Jackson brought the camp to Brewton and T.R. Miller because he noticed things were not right in the area and at the school as far as the game of basketball is concerned.
“Our fundamentals are way down,” Jackson said. “Our kids do not actually go out and play anymore. If it is not structured or organized they do not do it. They are usually inside in the air conditioner tweeting or on Facebook and everything else you can do on the phone and the computer, but they are not playing basketball.
“It is one thing to play basketball, but it is another way to do it right and to win. I figured I needed to go out and get some people who can teach the game and help people be taught so we can get back to doing things right around here (at T.R. Miller). We have been down a couple of years and it is time to go back up.”
Both Sanders and Jackson agreed that kids usually listen when someone else other than their coach is telling them what to do.
“A lot of times kids, I tell them to do stuff and you will hear them say they are tired of me,” Jackson said. “They just go in one ear and out the other like my granddaddy would say. But when you bring in someone new, they hear it, it may be a tad bit different, but they will do it.
“The thing I like about coach Sanders and Shot Doctor is that they slow it down so that everyone can get it and that is the main thing. A lot of times, folks teach it and they move so fast some can not get it. Then they do it by repetition.”
Sanders said he is seeing the same thing with his program
“We are basically singing the same song, but with different lyrics,” he said. “Everything coach Jackson said to me on the phone, we are saying the same thing just in a different way.
“It is good to have someone different come in to do that. I am actually going to have someone different come in for me and help put in the Bulls’ triangle offense in October. I have a guy coming to help me put it in. You have to have someone to come in that can sing the same song as you, but with just different lyrics. The camp is for everybody. One of the things I told coach Jackson is for me to be at his service.
“This is for kids from sixth grade to the high school. That is one reason we slow it down because you may have a sixth grader that is not as seasoned as an 11th grader. That is really how all of us do it.”
Jackson said taking things slow this summer will be a benefit to his 2013-14 Lady Tiger basketball team.
“I have a very young team this year with seven eighth graders on the varsity,” Jackson said. “We have to get it done and we don’t have forever to get it done. Before you know it, summer will be over with.”
Other coaches at the camp with coach Jackson and Sanders include ex-WNBA players with the Cleveland Rockers Deanna Jackson and Brandi McCain, Derek Korbe, Marc Edge, Wade Jackson, Diamond Middleton and Courtney Jones.
“I have the fifth and eighth grade boys and girls with most of them being girls,” Korbe said. “Everyone is working hard at the camp and doing a great job.”
Jackson, daughter of Ron Jackson, said she came to help the kids and prepare them for a great upcoming season.
“We are working on basic fundamentals,” Deanna said. “We are here to help them out any way we can. It is a really neat program and it is a way for us to give back to the community and help the kids work on the game of basketball and help them get better.”
The City of Brewton camp will go through Thursday, Aug. 1.
The camp will be off the week of Fourth of July and the week of July 15-19 for the AHSAA all-sports week.
After the shot doctor camp this past week, a point guard camp will be held today and Thursday, June 19-20 while a big man camp will be held June 26-27.