Carmody holds hoops clinic for Mars youth
ADAMS TWP — Standing below a hoop in the gym where he once starred, Robby Carmody hugged a basketball tight to his chest as a mob of young pupils tried to yank it free. His ear-to-ear smile during the playful game of keep-away — which briefly postponed the start of a drill — was just as wide as theirs.
He soaked in the joy of the sport at its purest, the turnout of approximately 75 kids at his first hoops clinic Wednesday morning proving his name still holds weight in the area.
“I was honestly surprised we got this many kids,” said Carmody, the former Mars standout and 2017-18 Gatorade Pennsylvania Boys Basketball Player of the Year. “I didn’t think anything of it, just because I haven’t been playing and haven’t really done a lot since I left school. It just means a lot that the people in the community still care.”
In working with the Planets’ hardwood stars of tomorrow — some of which stood no taller than his thighs — Carmody introduced practice methods that are commonplace at his level, but brand-new to the youngsters. As he talked them through their shots, offering a word of encouragement when needed, the smile never seemed to leave Carmody’s face.
“I haven’t been home for a while; I’ve been at school rehabbing every summer,” he said. “This is the first summer I’ve got to come home, so just trying to give back a little bit. I used to go to all these camps when I was a kid and really enjoyed doing it.
“I’m just trying to give the kids from the community now the same kind of experience.”
Carmody, who transferred to Mercer University in April, battled injuries in his few seasons at Notre Dame. In May, healthy and knowing he’d have a bit of a layover this year — and that parents have asked his father, longtime Mars boys hoops coach Rob Carmody, if he’d thought of imparting his knowledge — a light bulb went off in Robby’s head.
“I wasn’t really sure about it, because you get a little bit of that impostor syndrome,” Robby Carmody said. “Like, ‘Am I qualified? Am I good enough to actually run a camp and teach these kids what they need to do?’ Most of these kids, they don’t necessarily need somebody who’s a high-level teacher, they need somebody that they’re going to listen to.
“We thought that I would be somebody that they would, so we decided that it would be fun to throw something together.”
Junior Austin Campbell, senior Ryan Ceh, and Duquesne’s Lauren Wasylson — a 2018 Mars grad — all helped out with Wednesday’s two sessions at Mars High School, split up between grades 3 through 8.
“In a high school program, you need to have youth kids who are looking up to the high school program,” the younger Carmody said. “And then they get there, and they’re setting that example for the youth kids.”
Corey Utz was a player on the first team Coach Carmody fronted at Mars. Along with his child, Utz was the first to show up Wednesday morning.
“It’s kind of cool how that stuff is coming around full circle,” Robby Carmody said. “You’re getting people who had played here and now their kids are coming through the youth program and we’re getting to teach them. I was around when he (Utz) was in high school. He was teaching me this stuff in camp, and now I’m teaching his kids.
“You start to appreciate how important basketball is here.”
Getting varsity time becomes a goal of many young players, including Cole Geiger, one of the morning’s campers. They dot the bleachers on game nights in the winter, planning to one day knock down shots in front of such a crowd.
“That would be amazing,” Geiger said of one day playing for the Planets. “That would be a good dream, to be on the basketball team, work hard, and make coach proud. That’s all I want to do.”
Robby Carmody foretold a positive snowball effect once Mars finally brought home one WPIAL championship. The attendance was just another sign that he was correct.
“We just have one of those programs where K through 12, we’re in the gym, we’re doing the same type of stuff,” he said. “It’s because of camps like this. ... Having kids in the gym with the high school kids — getting to know them, getting to look up to them and see how they work — is really important. I think it’s a reason the high school program has had the success that it has.”
As for what he wanted the kids to take away from the morning, the younger Carmody said, “I just want it to be fun. Especially at this age, it’s not necessarily (meant to) drill them and yell at them and make sure they’re doing everything the right way. It’s to make sure they’re out there, they’re paying attention, they’re doing what they need to do.
“But they’re having fun while they’re doing it.”
And he had fun teaching it.
