A Camp With a Double Pump : Twins’ Enterprise Results in a Four-Day Basketball Clinic

Why would anyone pay $100 to attend a four-day basketball camp run by a 20-year-old junior college student who admittedly has never coached basketball?

Better ask the more than 100 people who will attend Dana Pump’s fourth annual basketball camp, which begins Monday at Reseda High.

“I always say that when you pay $400 to attend Magic Johnson’s basketball camp, you’re paying for the name,” said Pump, who attends College of the Canyons. “Our camp is only $100 and we have a good staff.”

Pump’s camp, which will have a second session July 13-17, will feature several Southern California basketball coaches, including UCLA Coach Walt Hazzard, USC assistant Brian Hammell and Cal State Long Beach Coach Joe Harrington. Pump also is coordinating the appearance of NBA players Byron Scott of the Lakers and Darren Daye of the Boston Celtics.

“At our first camp in 1984 we had 38 kids,” said Pump, who began the camp at age 16 with the help of twin brother David. “But in a few years, without a doubt, this will be one of the largest camps anywhere.”

Each summer, during the brief NBA off-season, youths have a choice of attending several basketball camps--Magic Johnson’s, Pat Riley’s or John Wooden’s to name a few. But Dana Pump’s?

“You don’t have to be a great player to be a great coach,” said Pump, who was selected to the All-CIF 1-A basketball team as a guard with Bel-Air Prep in 1985. “Kids and parents know that I know my stuff.”

The Pump brothers attribute their success to two factors--hard work and word of mouth. The pair began hanging around parks as pre-teens and playing on youth-league teams: basketball, football and baseball.

“We were park rats,” David Pump said. “We were always living at the park. Our parents never wanted us to be separated.”

After becoming constant figures on park-league teams, both graduated to coaching youths in T-ball and flag football. Their reputation grew from there, Pump said, and they became acquainted with many influential people.

“I got to know a lot of coaches,” Pump said. “I think I got to know almost every high school coach in the mid-Valley and they all put in a good word for me.

“It’s not what you know,” Pump said. “It’s who you know. I really believe that.”

Still, it took money to start a basketball camp--$1,000 in 1984--and the Pump brothers had to come up with it themselves.

“Our parents have always been very supportive, but we’ve never asked them for a dime,” David Pump said. Instead, the money was raised through the twins’ “hustling.”

“We used to tar driveways and sell candy,” David Pump said. “People wouldn’t say no to us because they knew who we were and that we were hard workers.”

Pump is working toward becoming a coach at a Division I college. His said he hopes his basketball camp is a step in that direction.

“I love basketball,” Pump said. “It’s in me. My name is ‘Pump.’ I even live on Celtic Street.”