SMBA and The LeBron James King's Academy

“90% of life is just showing up.” -- Woody Allen

The most difficult part of SMBA thus far? Explaining to my family and friends back in Boston how I have managed to live in San Diego for 7 months without learning how to surf. For my family, friends, and most other people unfamiliar with the sports industry, the SMBA culture is a difficult one to understand. Yes, we have class only three days a week. But no, that doesn’t mean we are at the beach the other four. If you are a loyal follower of this blog, you already know that SMBA students spend their free days volunteering for any sports related job they can get their hands on. The payoff? Valuable industry experience, the opportunity to enlarge our personal networks, and, usually, lots of fun. There is also the small chance attached to every volunteer job that it will completely surprise and a seemingly ordinary volunteer job will turn into an experience so great – so inimitable – that it becomes an unforgettable memory. Only in sports.

Of course absolutely none of this was going through my mind when I showed up to the LeBron James King’s Academy volunteer orientation last Thursday. The 500-kid camp was held from July 24th to July 28th on the UC San Diego campus in La Jolla. I knew the camp needed bodies, and I had figured a day or two of volunteering would net me a couple glimpses of LeBron and a free t-shirt. My expectations for receiving any responsibilities of significance were realistic (that is, they were low). After all, the LeBron James King’s Academy is one of the premiere youth basketball camps in the world and featured nationally renowned high school coach Dru Joyce II, 15-year NBA veteran Olden Polynice, and NBA All-Star Mo Williams. Oh yeah. The reigning NBA MVP LeBron James was also kicking around all week.

However, my modest expectations of being important were fully reversed at the volunteer orientation when the camp’s Executive Director Damon Haley gave me the position of Overnight Administrator (yes, I named the position myself). The camp had 192 overnight campers and I was put in charge of three important daily tasks. One: get the kids to bed. Two: get the kids to breakfast. Three: keep the kids safe in between task one and task two. Task three sounds simple enough in relatively quiet La Jolla, but there are few jobs as heavy or as tense as taking care of someone else’s children, and, while I know I was nowhere near the most important person at the camp, I’m sure plenty of mothers would have put me pretty highly on their lists. I took my responsibilities extremely seriously.

The broad message of my LeBron James King’s Academy experience? Just show up. The sports industry is incredibly unpredictable, especially for those of us starting at the bottom. SMBA students never know when we might luck into that next valuable professional opportunity so we just show up. I began my King’s Academy experience thinking it wouldn’t even make it onto my résumé; now, I expect it to be a focal point of my next interview. I received incredible experience working directly with the Academy’s Directors, who leaned on me heavily to make the hours of 11 pm to 7 am pass by as smoothly as possible each night. And, when the camp was outside of those hours, I was able to sit courtside for some awesome basketball, nightly scrimmages between a team of counselors led by LeBron and Mo Williams, against a team of elite college players. In all, the LeBron James King’s Academy will be truly an unforgettable memory.

Below are some pictures of other SMBA students who also volunteered at the camp! Enjoy!

- Tyler Griggs
SMBA '10

Group photo shot of Lebron and volunteers. Please note that I am not in this photo as it was taken during the daytime and I was surely off somewhere taking a nap (yes, I'm jealous).
Front row (L-R): SMBA '10 Erika, SDSU student Emily, Best Basketball Player in The World, SMBA '10 Erin, SMBA '10 Christin, SMBA '09 Kristen.
Back Row (L-R): SMBA '09 David, SMBA '10 Sam, SDSU student Ben, SMBA '10 Taylor, SMBA '10 Steve, SMBA '10 Alex.


An awesome shot of the 500 campers imitating Lebron's "Chalk Clap."

More of the SMBA '10 gang. From left to right: Sam, Kaiser, Erin, Erika, and Taylor.

Lebron taking questions from the campers. In case you were wondering, turns out he owns 14 cars.