Think Lou Williams merely lends his name to a basketball summer camp? Think again.
The NBA player has returned to South Gwinnett each of the past 10 years and is a hands-on contributor in his camp. This is truly Lou Willville.
Williams knows the campers by name. He rattles them off. There is Dante, who is participating in his last camp. There is DJ, who is finally old enough to move up with the older age group. They eat lunch together. He plays one-on-one with each camper, giving them a chance to go up against an NBA player.
“A lot of these kids, we’ve grown up together,” Williams said Thursday on the final day of the 2014 Lou Williams Basketball Skills Camp. “When we are playing one-on-one and we are trash talking, it’s because I’ve known half these kids for four or five years already. They have been coming to the camp repeatedly.”
The camp hosts about 100 kids ages 7-15 each summer at Williams’ alma mater South Gwinnett High School. Williams said in the past two years, since he joined his hometown Hawks, the campers have come from a wider area.
“This year is the first year that we’ve had the majority of kids who are not from Gwinnett County,” Williams said. “Usually I have 95 percent of my kids are from Gwinnett County but because of the Hawks and because of the Atlanta connection and the kids seeing my on the different sides of town we’ve had more kids from the downtown area, from the Cobb County area. This has been a year when we’ve got to know some new faces and meet some new kids.”
Williams brings in high profile guest speakers. Fellow local product Josh Smith, Williams’ friend and former Hawks teammate, visited. Atlanta Dream player Angel McCoughtry stopped by. Entertainer Jacob Latimore lent a hand.
Expect nothing different now that Williams has been traded to the Toronto. He said he will be back next year, just as he has every year since he left for the NBA directly from South Gwinnett High. This is family.
“You see them grow up and see the progression of their games and their progression as people is what I get out of it. … It’s like raising them for a week every year. That is how we look at it.”
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