Steve Parillon, as President of the BVI Hoop It Up Foundation, has masterminded many Basketball Programmes and plans to launch at least two new ones in 2013. Photo: Charlie Jackson/VINO

Steve Parillon believes the VI Showcase camp has proven very successful but will face some challenges in 2013. Photo: Charlie Jackson/VINO

As President of the Foundation Steve Parillon explained, “we will start on Saturday with District Basketball Camps and each Saturday we will move from District to District to teach Basketball.”

One of the goals of the Foundation this year is to reach out to the communities as much as they can. The Camps will be aimed at boys and girls aged 6 to 18.

The Island Tour Basketball Camp rolls into the East End of the Island to start the ball rolling and will be based on the court at Greenland from 9 A.M. to 10.30 A.M. Next stop on the tour is Road Town where the camp will run from 11 A.M. until 12.30 P.M. at the Multi Purpose Sports Complex. First stop in the West will be on the court at Capoons Bay from 1.30 P.M. until 2.30 P.M. and then the final stop of the day will be on the court in Cane Garden Bay from 3 P.M. until 4.30 P.M.

Hoops and Basketball after school programme will also be re-starting on Monday January 14, 2013 at the Multi Purpose Sports Complex.

Despite the new visions for spreading the word of basketball throughout the Territory, one of the more popular programmes run in 2012, the VI Showcase Camp will be heavily revamped even if it carries on at all. “We are still thinking about it, but the thing is the showcase camp involves a lot of funding. You have to fly coaches in and then put them in hotels in the hopes they will select one of our own,” stated Parillon

One way around the issue, he thought though, would be for the Hoop It Up Foundation to go virtual and video tape the camp in order to provide the coaches with footage of the players they are possibly interested in.

“It's important we still do something," commented Parillon. “One thing we all liked about the camp is the fact that the kids made an effort to come out and earn their chance of a scholarship. However, good you think you are it’s always good to prove yourself in that sort of environment.”

People also were getting the wrong idea of the Showcase Camp, according to Parillon. “We are not a funding organisation, we can help the youths into different institutions but we can’t fund them. People seemed to think we were responsible for them financially, but that wasn’t the case and it’s become misleading.”

However, with some of the kids who have been offered the chance to further both Education and Basketball Skills abroad struggling to make ends meet, the Foundation has another new concept for 2013,  a Hoops for Youths fund. “We are trying to find a way to raise funds so we can help some of the young BVIslanders who are away at school,“ noted Parillon. “Having been away to school myself I know there are challenges as a non-USA citizen where you don’t get the same sort of support as an international student compared to American student.  So what we want to do over the years is build a fund so that students can get some help from their homeland.”

Since the Foundation began in 2008, Parillon rates the Books and Basketball after School Programme as the most successful venture and firmly believes it has done a lot to introduce the concept of “student athlete” into the mind set of youths and parents.