he attended the JDHS boys\u2019 basketball awards banquet<\/a> that celebrated the team\u2019s state championship season. It sparked his interest in reinstating the camp.<\/p>\n\u201cListen, I\u2019m 35, and most of those kids to them I\u2019m like a fairy tale like I never really existed because they never really seen me before, because I usually sneak into town,\u201d Boozer said. \u201cThat was one of those moments that made it even more emphasized how much I missed being home, being in the basketball community in Juneau.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boozer\u2019s camp arrives on the tail end of his own professional basketball career. He last played in the NBA three years ago on the Los Angeles Lakers. Last season he played in the Chinese Basketball Association.<\/p>\n
Boozer\u2019s accomplishments include an NCAA national championship, an Olympic Gold Medal and scores of NBA wins. He\u2019s thrived under two Hall of Fame coaches: Mike Krzyzweski and Jerry Sloan. Krzyzweski had a hand in both Boozer\u2019s NCAA championship with Duke University and Gold Medal in Bejing as the head coach of Team USA.<\/p>\n
He noted though it was the people of Juneau who first got him on the right track.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been very fortunate to have a great group of people that have supported me along my path,\u201d Boozer said. \u201cAnd for me, it started in Juneau, whether me and my dad wanted to go out to shoot outside or get in the high school to get up some extra shots, Coach Houston would open the door for us. Or if I needed one of my friends to come rebound for me, they would come rebound for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The camp is for boys and girls ages 5-18 and costs $150. All campers will receive a T-shirt and daily prizes will be handed out.<\/p>\n
A portion of the camp proceeds will go toward sickle cell disease research. Boozer\u2019s oldest son, Carmani, was stricken with the disease before he was cured through a bone marrow transplant.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m in a place in my life right now where I have a little more stability and where I can go back to Alaska every year, do my camp the way I want to do it, have fun, make sure the kids get two things: a great experience number one \u2026 and then they can learn great things about the game of basketball that I didn\u2019t even learn until I was more older in life and playing in the NBA,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Those interested can sign up for the camp at CarlosBoozerBasketballCamp.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carlos Boozer\u2019s coming home. Juneau\u2019s renowned basketball son is hosting the Carlos Boozer Basketball Camp for five days at the Juneau-Douglas High School main gym, July 31-Aug. 4. It\u2019s been seven years since Boozer last run a camp in Juneau. He assured he visits most every year, though. Last May, he attended the JDHS boys\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":425,"featured_media":31001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-31000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/425"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31000"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=31000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}