Registration now open for 15th annual Bobby Madison Basketball Camp

Published 4:46 pm Friday, June 6, 2025

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By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

COLUMBIANA – The month of June has come once again, which means it will soon be time for dozens of kids to descend on Columbiana for the annual Bobby Madison Basketball Camp.

This year’s 15th edition is set for June 23-26 from 8 a.m.-noon at Shelby County High School with registration open through June 13 for kids from ages 6-13.

“As usual, I’m always excited when it’s basketball camp time,” Madison said. “It kind of gives me an opportunity to get in the gym, work with kids and kind of give back to my love to the game of basketball to the kids, so I’m extremely excited and starting to get myself in shape and ready for camp.”

Last year’s camp saw 95 kids take the court at Columbiana Middle School to learn from Madison and his experienced team of coaches. It also marked the 15th anniversary of the first camp in 2009 and was the 14th edition since the 2020 camp was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Like years prior, campers can expect to learn the basics of basketball to build a solid foundation to their game. However, Madison adds in life skills lessons as well to help them grow into better members of society.

More than anything though, he hopes the campers can at least take one thing away from the camp whether it’s on or off the court.

“We’ll work on passing skills, we’ll work on shooting, ball-handling, all the aspects of basketball, and I want them to leave camp learning something,” Madison said. “I want them to have fun. That’s always important, but I also want to make sure that they learn something, they’re better basketball players once they leave camp, and I don’t just want them to be better basketball players but better people as well.”

Once again, a team of assistant coaches will assist Madison throughout the week, and many of the assistants have collegiate and professional experience playing basketball.

The basketball IQ of the coaches combined with their character and teaching abilities elevates the camp in Madison’s eyes into one of the best experiences for a young athlete.

“In my opinion, it’s one of the premier camps in Shelby County because the coaches and the people that are involved, do everything with care and love and want to make sure the main goal is to teach the kids the right way to play the game of basketball and the right way to treat people in life,” Madison said.

One of the biggest changes to this year’s camp is a return to Shelby County High School. The gym served as the camp’s longtime home before renovations forced a relocation to Columbiana Middle School for the past two years.

Madison agreed with Wildcats head boys basketball coach Chase Cornelius that the camp needed to return to SCHS to show local kids the court they may play on one day and spur their love for the varsity team.

“In partnership with Shelby County High School coach Cornelius, we talked about just space and have an opportunity to get kids in the high school gym which he thinks that’s very important for them to be in the high school gym, and hopefully one day a lot of the kids that attend camp will be future Wildcats that play for Shelby County, so we thought it was important to get it back to the high school,” Madison said. “Last year, they were doing some work on the gym so we weren’t able to use it at the time, but I think it’s important to be at the high school and have a little bit more space and just show the kids, ‘Hey, we’re playing in the high school gym,’ and giving them the opportunity.”

For Madison though, the best part of camp each time is seeing how excited the kids are for camp and in particular their excitement for learning new skills. He said that each year the campers remind him why he fell in love with basketball in the first place.

“The smiles on the kids’ faces the excitement, the joy, the kids that come in on day one and maybe don’t know how to do a certain drill but by day three or four they’re looking at me like saying, ‘Coach Bobby, look, I can do this now,’ those are the things that always excite me, the joy of the kids and they energize me as always,” Madison said. “They give me that joy and they help me remember how much I love the game of basketball and how much I love the fellowship of being in the gym.”

Registration is open for $80 per camper through Friday, June 13 at Docs.google.com/forms/d/1dz0GMk0SFq2rwmRKbsKMZjIyoIl1mPqMxgd-wk9VhNo/viewform?edit_requested=true . Any campers registered after that will pay the late registration rate of $95.