The Bulldog MVP Skill Development Camp will be in just its second year when King’s Fork High School hosts young basketball players July 11-14.

Given King’s Fork’s head boys basketball coach Josh Worrell involves as much of his varsity-level teaching, drills and fundamentals as possible for the campers as his Bulldog squad, the main change from the inaugural camp to this summer’s camp is making it larger.

“We’re hopefully looking at getting about 60 kids to come out,” Worrell said.

The MVP Skill Development Camp welcomed more than 40 boys and girls, ages 7-16, last July. Worrell, his coaching staff, as well as current and former Bulldog and Lady Bulldog players, are in charge of instruction.

“During last year’s camp I had someone ask me, ‘Can kids learn what you’re teaching them this young?’ and yes, plus everything kids learn properly now, that means you don’t have as many bad habits to break down later,” Worrell said.

“I was really pleased with how many kids came out in our first year. It was great to see that kids do want to come to a camp, play basketball and learn,” Worrell said.

There aren’t as many individual skill camps for older players, said Worrell, and another positive from the first run at a summer camp was having the 12-16 group have the same numbers as the younger kids. The 7-11 group goes from 8:30 a.m. to noon each of the four days, and the older session is from 1-4:30 p.m.

“I feel splitting the camp up is good for the kids. After three hours, anyone sort of gets run down with it. The way we have it, I think we can do a good job of keeping everyone active and excited the whole time,” Worrell said.

“I’ve had some of my players volunteering, asking if they can help with the camp, this year and that’s neat to see,” Worrell said.

Current and past Bulldogs and Lady Bulldogs join in the coaching, even though the camp comes during high school summer league evenings at King’s Fork.

A couple days during last year’s camp, and it shouldn’t be any different this time around, some of the Bulldogs were in the gym practically straight through from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., then back the next morning.

The current Bulldogs get to see a little of what they put their coaches through. The long days of coaching, then playing, are good tests, too, says Worrell.

“They see some of what it takes to run (practices and drills) right and then later that night, have to play well. It’s nothing but a good thing all around,” he said.

Last year, Worrell brought in guest speaker Maurice Riddick for the younger group. Riddick played at Nansemond River, then Bethune-Cookman, before going into an ongoing professional career in Mexico, Brazil and Venezuela.

From the Bulldogs now playing collegiately, such as ’09 grads TaShauna Rodgers (now at Georgetown), Jaquon Parker (Cincinnati) and Jamar Wertz (Maryland-Baltimore Co.) and ’10 grads Jay Copeland (Ball St.) and Davante Gardner (Marquette), Worrell hopes the campers see what’s possible with lots of work, on and off the court.

“Most of the kids have seen them play here. They can show the kids with doing well in the classroom and being a good person, you can have an opportunity to play in college,” Worrell said.

“The college kids especially, I’ve had some of them let me know they really want to be at the camp again because they were surprised how much fun they had,” Worrell said.

The registration cost is $50 and includes a camp T-shirt. For more information, contact Worrell at 636-0836 or josworrell@spsk12.net, Theotis Porter at 537-8127 or theporter@spsk12.net or Leroy Skinnner at 735-7642 or lerskinner@spsk12.net.

Registration forms are on King’s Fork’s website. Campers can pre-register or register the morning of the first day of camp.