Learn to be a shooter at annual clinic

Date: 7/10/2007

By Courtney Llewellyn

Reminder Assistant Editor



EAST LONGMEADOW Ed Winch, a basketball coach at East Longmeadow High School, will be hosting three separate basketball camps in the upcoming weeks. The first, an all-around basketball camp, runs July 9 - 13 and is open to children in grades 6 - 10.

The other camps include a boys' camp July 16 - 17 and a girls' camp July 19 - 20. These will be focusing on the mechanics of shooting the ball.

Winch said that once you learn the mechanics, shooting the ball is not complicated. "It's all about repetition," he said.

"You can be a great shooter if you want to be," he explained. "It takes 15 minutes to learn the basics, but you have to want to put in the time to perfect them."

The mechanics of properly shooting a basketball are to square your shoulders to the basket, place your feet square to your shoulders, push with your legs and not your upper body, keep your back straight, keep your elbow in, make your forearm and your upper arm flex to a 90-degree angle at the elbow, extend your elbow, snap your wrist and always follow through.

Winch worked at the University of North Carolina with legendary coach Dean Smith, and learned from Coach Buck Freeman when he was an assistant at UNC during the nascent stages of the school's basketball program.

He's also worked at camps around the nation, helping Division I, II and III athletes better their games. He's even helped some NBA players.

"If you hit the rim when you shoot, you're doing something wrong," he said.

An NBA player had that problem several years ago when he kept hitting the back of the rim and Winch worked with him for two full days to correct the issue.

He used an analogy to explain the problem to the player: "If every time you backed out of your driveway and you hit a tree across the road, you'd adjust how you were driving." Once the player realized he was pushing too hard, Winch said he went on a point-scoring streak.

"Shooting the basketball is a science and an art that's lost today," Winch said.

His shooting camps will bring the skill back to the game. They are even better for those who haven't really played basketball because those who play less don't have a lot of bad habits to break.

"There's nothing I don't know about basketball," Winch said.

Winch has been a coach at East Longmeadow High School for five years, but has a history steeped in all levels of basketball coaching.

For more information on the camps, please visit www.eastlongmeadow.org.