J.R. Tidwell/FCT Red Bay girl’s head basketball coach Donnie Roberts leads a group of summer campers through drills at the Red Bay High School gym Tuesday morning. Current players at Red Bay were on hand to help out Coach Roberts with the camp.

RED BAY — Red Bay girl’s basketball head coach Donnie Roberts has a tradition at Red Bay High School. Coach Roberts holds a basketball camp for youngsters every summer.

“I’ve done one every year that I’ve been here,” Roberts said. “I’ve been here 29 years.”

The camp is held in two groups; the first for girls between seventh and ninth grade, the other for younger girls between third and sixth grade.

Around 25-30 girls have been participating in the seventh to ninth grade group this summer.

The instruction given is based around having good fundamentals, which are key.

“It’s a fundamentals camp,” Roberts said. “We try to do a good job teaching that.”

The camp runs for five days, and current and former Red Bay players are on hand to help out Coach Roberts.

“A lot of why I do these camps is to help the kids at Red Bay,” Roberts said. “We’ve grown players doing this, and you can get a lot of work done in the summer.”

Five members of his current team were pictured in a Franklin County Times article dated June 16, 2002. The story was coverage of that summer’s camp.

Fast forward ten years and Jade Ezzell, Mariah Horton, Alaina Hester, Carlee Berry and Kasey Sparks, girls that participated in that camp, were on Coach Robert’s varsity squad, one that he took to the 2A girl’s state championship game.

Berry and Hester were among the members of the present varsity team on hand to help out the younger girls Tuesday morning, proving that instructing younger players goes full circle.

This year’s summer camp extends through Friday, but for any girls who missed it this time around just try again next year.

Odds are it will be around the same time in the same place with Coach Roberts at the helm.