Basketball camps have returned to Salt Spring, as has head coach Yoni Marmorstein, who brings a program designed to improve skills both on and off the court.
The InVision basketball camps this year are similar to several Marmorstein organized on the island before Covid, with monthly weekend sessions for grades 6 to 12. He hopes the skills training he and his coaching team offer will help grow the game on Salt Spring –– and through a goal-setting segment, grow the players.
“The idea is that you can put your goals into your vision for what you want to do,” said Marmorstein. “For example, if your goal is to play basketball in college, we can set out a schedule –– what you have to work on, when you’ll have to do it during each day of the week. You can learn how to hold yourself accountable.”
Marmorstein said basketball plans can become a framework, an age-appropriate, relatable way to look at goals; kids might not know what they want to do with the rest of their life, he said, but many times they know what they want to do with basketball.
“A basketball goal is pretty straightforward,” he said. “You decide, ‘I want to be a starter on my high school team next year,’ or ‘I want to make seven out of 10 jump shots when I shoot.’ When you get out in the world and do something other than basketball, you can translate that skillset.”
Marmorstein speaks from experience. He grew up on Salt Spring, and has been coaching and training basketball players for the last decade, after a transformative –– if brief –– career as a player that took off later in life than he’d originally planned.
“When I was 18, I had no idea how to get to the college level of basketball,” laughed Marmorstein. “I knew that’s what I wanted to do with my life, but I was so afraid to even tell friends and family about it –– because I thought it was kind of a ridiculous goal.”
At a self-assessed “five-foot-nine, on a good day,” Marmorstein said it was difficult to get noticed by coaches as a youth; at 25, he returned to the game he knew he loved, and sought out training on his own.
“Once I was getting mentored, I started improving quickly,” he said. “I was able to walk on at Capilano University as a red shirt, and kept improving.”
Eventually Marmorstein was able to walk on with the Vancouver Knights at age 29, and was offered some play with the Vancouver Dragons.
“It wasn’t always glamorous,” he laughed, “but it was a lot more than I thought I would be in, and a lot more than a lot of people thought I would do. I felt like it showed me you could achieve a lot with the right approach –– setting a goal, and planning how to get there –– and that players could achieve more than I did if they start that approach earlier.”
Marmorstein said the next camp is forming for Oct. 26 and 27. For more information or to be notified when signups are posted, visit coachyoni.com/saltspringisland.