Basketball Camp Is Magic for Youngsters

Laker fans will not be privileged to witness Magic Johnson’s trademark no-look passes on the basketball court this fall, but about 500 youngsters attending his annual hoop camp Wednesday in Thousand Oaks did.

“It was rad,” said Matt Barker, 10, of Westlake Village. “He did the best assists and passes.”

The uncritical crowd oohed, aahed and chanted “Magic, Magic” as Johnson and members of his traveling all-star team dunked and weaved their way through a pickup game with coaches at the Cal Lutheran-based camp.

“I’m retired now from professional basketball,” Johnson said. “I’m retired forever from the NBA. But I’ll never retire from camps.”

For more than a decade, a fortunate group of 8- to 18-year-olds has paid almost $500 apiece for the opportunity to experience five days of virtually perpetual basketball. This year’s class is the most cosmopolitan ever, with a multinational bunch of budding basketball stars from as far afield as Japan and France.

But unlike most camps held in the name of professional players, coaches and players say, Johnson actually participates in his on a daily basis.

“Before this camp is over, he will have made contact with each of these kids, either shaking their hand or eating lunch--some kind of personal touch,” said coach Ray Johnson of Oceanside. “He hasn’t forgotten where he started. He started as a kid with a dream.”

Dreams may be a big part of the camp, but so is reality. The dangers of drugs, gangs and, yes, promiscuity are openly discussed at the camp, said America’s most famous HIV-positive athlete. Indeed, the first question a child asked him at this year’s camp during a question and answer session concerned his encounter with the deadly human immunodeficiency virus, Johnson said.

“It’s life,” he said. “It’s experiences. I share all my experiences with them. . . . Basketball is a small part of their life.”

Although to be sure, for one week, it’s pretty much everything. Especially for kids who have the opportunity to step on the same court as the future Hall of Famer and whose memories of that will last a lifetime.

“I’ve taken him one-on-one and three-on-one,” said Tawny Thorp, 13, of Westlake Village. “He stuffed me pretty big, but in the three-on-one, I scored on him.”

Said Fillmore resident Brent Gunn, 14, in somewhat of an understatement after playing against Magic earlier this week: “He was hard to guard.”

But Johnson doesn’t mind being unguarded--at least off the court--around kids.

“I was once one of them, and I need to realize where I came from,” he said.