Because There Is a Message That Needs to Be Heard . . . : NBA Players Go Camping in the Summertime

Whenever Joe Weakley calls, Darwin Cook is there to help him. So are Michael Cooper, Reggie Theus and Mike McGee.

These National Basketball Assn. stars are always there, as Weakley says, “to put the energy back home in the community.”

The four players helped Weakley with the Summerscope basketball camp this week at Crenshaw High School.

They taught the campers basketball skills, of course, but more importantly, they returned to their roots, giving the inner-city youngsters, from 8-17, positive role models. Being available and speaking to the young players is their best function at camps such as the Summerscope, held for the past three years at Crenshaw.

In addition to the camp in Los Angeles, there are other Summerscope programs in Chicago, Sacramento, Houston and Washington.

The NBA players talk about staying away from drugs, staying in school and trying to be competitive, not only on the basketball court but in class as well.

After all, the pros were once wide-eyed kids playing basketball night and day and looking for someone to idolize. And for someone to offer guidance.

Weakley, the Summerscope director, believes it’s important that the pro stars return to the schools and camps to talk with the kids and offer advice. And they do so willingly, according to Weakley. He said he has never had anyone turn him down in four years.

“They understand what I’m all about,” Weakley said. “I’m into putting something back into the community. It’s always nice to see a kid excel. I’m hoping I’m making a successful young man come out of the camp.”

Cook, who plays for the Washington Bullets and was a guard on Crenshaw’s 1976 team, said: “If you come and get through to a few people that’s a start. You want to get through to all of them, but if you get to one, it’s successful. If you’re coming out to camps like this and giving talks, you can’t be a failure.”

Cook, who has spent seven season in the NBA with the Bullets and New Jersey Nets certainly is not a failure. Nor is Cooper, who spoke to the 327 campers Thursday.

They mobbed Cooper, surrounding the Lakers’ sixth man before he could get through the gym doors, yelling, “ Cooooop! Cooooop! “

“(Cooper) is a beautiful man,” Weakley said. “He’s someone if I knew he was in town and he wasn’t doing anything and I called him, I’d know he’d be there.

Cooper, who played at Pasadena, spoke at the camp last year, too.

Cook has been at the three previous Summerscopes and this year also did the camp in Washington.

“The kids get to meet me--not have them idolize me like on TV,” Cook said. “But to know me as a person.

“When I was growing up, my role models were my older brothers. Then I looked up to Marques Johnson, who was a senior when I was a ninth-grader. Each year I progressed and I finally made it.”

Cook, a slightly built 6-foot 3-inch guard, talked about overcoming obstacles in his speech to the campers. Cook said he was only 5-9 and 150 pounds when he entered Crenshaw as a sophomore. He played in college at the University of Portland, but was hardly a big-name star, averaging 17 points a game as a senior.

He was drafted by Detroit in the fourth round in 1980, was cut and then signed as a free agent by New Jersey, where he spent six seasons before being traded to the Bullets last season.

“I talked to them about when I was coming up,” Cook said. “Like I was too small in high school and people would say, ‘You’re not big enough.’ I always tried to work and prove them wrong.”

Hard work, discipline, and staying away from drugs was Cook’s message.