The first Bulldog MVP Skill Development Camp should go very smoothly and the young campers should learn a lot from King’s Fork’s basketball coaches and players for a simple reason.

Head coach Joshua Worrell, the boys varsity coach for the Bulldogs, and his players will be teaching many of the things they do in every practice, and teaching it in the exact same way.

Even if the camp, scheduled for July 12-15 at King’s Fork High School, is for players as young as seven, there will be similarities between each day at the camp and Worrell’s varsity practices, the same practices that led to a state championship in March 2009 and an ongoing streak of 48 straight wins in Southeastern District play.

“Each day, we’ll have sessions, offensive stations. We’ll have eight different stations, and the groups will spend about eight minutes at each. We’ll work with them on individual moves and fundamentals, and we’ll make it competitive,” Worrell said. The coach is describing the camp, but a Bulldog practice in mid-November, a week or two before the season starts, is nearly identical.

“When you bring competitiveness into a drill or station, kids are more excited about it and get more into it,” Worrell said.

There are more links Worrell wants to bring to the camp, which will run from 8:30 a.m. to noon each of the four days for ages 7-11 and from 1 to 4:30 p.m. for ages 12-16. Even the day’s schedule has a reason. Sometimes a longer practice isn’t a better practice.

“If you go all day, a lot of time at camps, you’ll end up saying, ‘OK, you guys just go play,’” said Worrell.

“We’ll have about 45 minutes or so of playing time each day,” Worrell said, but more than that, the camp is going to focus on individual skill development and working on those skills in the right way. “The rest of the time will be spent on skills, teaching and coaching about the importance of a lot of the small details that basketball is really all about.”

“It’s important to teach kids early on how to do things correctly,” Worrell said. “You hear of ‘practice makes perfect’ but that’s not always right because you can practice things the wrong way.”

The camp is for boys and girls. Former Bulldog and Lady Bulldog players are going to be part of the camp.

“Hopefully we’ll be able to have one or two players a day come in and give a short talk, about the importance of academics and what it takes at the next level,” Worrell said. “With the older kids, they can let them know what it takes to play high school basketball versus rec basketball.”

In the past couple years, the Bulldogs have had Jaquon Parker go on to Cincinnati and Jamar Wertz go to Maryland-Baltimore County. TaShauna Rodgers, the Big East’s Freshman of the Year at Georgetown this past season, and Ransheda Jennings, who’s playing at Chowan, are the Lady Bulldog players now playing collegiately.

From this year’s KF seniors, Davante Gardner is going to Marquette and Jay Copeland is going to Ball State.

“Everything we do will be in a fun environment,” Worrell said.

There will be a little more time spent with fun and games for the younger group, but even within drills and fundamentals, there will be games and competition mixed in.

Flyers and registration forms can be found on King’s Fork’s Web site and printed from there. Forms should be mailed to the high school, attention to Joshua Worrell. Campers can sign-up the morning of the first day of camp, starting at 8 a.m., but it’s preferred for players to register ahead of time so the coaches can plan ahead.