And We're Off...Boot Camp Style

Dan Shepard's post:
 
Hello everyone! I am very excited to be blogging throughout the season for the NACBM.org throughout this basketball season. To give everyone a little background, my name is Dan Shepard and I am a men's basketball manager at Loyola University in Chicago. I am entering my senior year so I felt that blogging throughout this season would help make it very special!

This off-season has been the busiest off-season I have ever worked in, but I loved every minute of it. With a brand new coaching staff and lots of new players, there has been a tremendous amount of growth with our team both on and off the court. The past week and a half has brought the team and staff close together as we have been thus far. The reason for this is because of boot camp. Boot camp was Coach Moser's (our Head Coach Porter Moser) idea as a way for our players to get into terrific shape and a way for our team to come together as one group fighting for the same goals. The individual and team workouts help a lot and were great, especially for a team learning many new terms and concepts, but boot camp helped change the culture of Loyola basketball. Every morning for boot camp, the guys would report to the weight room by 5:45 am for stretching and getting loose before running over to the Halas Center courts to begin the boot camp. Boot camp involved many different skill developing drills, fundamental drills, different kinds of sprints and even a pool workout! The drills did not involve a basketball so it really stressed learning the fundamentals and doing everything the right way.

Boot camp helped set the pace for what is expected of this team from the coaches and a couple of leaders emerged for the group. Guys like Walt Gibler, Ben Averkamp, and Cully Payne led through encouraging motivation to teammates and by great example. It is great to have guys step up and lead a team when things are not easy. We also had guys improve each and every day to the point where on the last day they were leading the team during sprints. The guy who did this and brought everything to the table everyday were Devin Hill, John Benkoske, Chim Kadima, and freshman Christian Thomas. It was great to see a freshman like Christian in such terrific shape, because it shows he is prepared for whatever might be thrown his way this season. The other freshman Joe Crisman showed the same toughness and ability during workouts until he came down with a virus for a couple of days. We can't wait to get Joe back on the court!

As Midnight Madness gets close, the excitement around campus starts to grow! Our newly renovated Gentile Arena will soon be open in about another month and a half and the team and student body could not be more excited. The Loyola Ramblers will have Midnight Madness this Friday evening, and we can't wait for the student body to come join us in the celebration of a new basketball season. I wish everyone a great and successful season as practice gets rolling at the end of this week!