A helping hand: Jarrett Culver brings community together, teaches Lubbock youth valuable lessons with basketball camp

For the second year in a row, Jarrett Culver gave back to his hometown.

The second Jarrett Culver Basketball Camp is underway at the Apex Events Center in Lubbock. The camp started on Monday and will last until Thursday, with three sessions held each day. The morning session from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. was for kids from kindergarten through 5th grade, hosting around 100 campers.

An afternoon session is held for 6th-8th graders from 2 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. and an evening “open gym” session is held for 9th-12th graders from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

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Culver organized the camp through his Culver Foundation alongside his brother, Trey, and his mother, Regina. Trey took the role of lead organizer for the camp, helping bring volunteers to work with the campers and local sponsors to help fund the camp. Most of the volunteers are Lubbock natives, with some even being childhood friends of Culver.

Culver wants to help each camper improve their basketball skills. But more importantly, he wants to teach campers lessons outside of basketball.

“We just want to teach them life lessons,” Culver said. “I've learned a lot of things in life through basketball, so being able to teach the kids and give them that knowledge as well is great.”

Campers were split up into seven groups named after NBA teams, including the Mavericks, Bucks, Heat and Warriors. They then rotated through seven eight-minute stations focused on shooting, defense, passing and several other basketball skills. The final station had each camper take a picture with Culver, which was held on another court.

After a short break, each “team” played against each other in a short scrimmage. But no matter what campers did throughout the day, they were constantly reminded of the “word of the day.”

The word of the day is a life lesson that Culver, his family and the volunteers want to teach the campers. There are four, one for each day — gratitude, discipline, integrity and love.

On Tuesday, the word of the day was discipline, which constituted the day's theme.

Before the day started, Culver was interviewed by a volunteer to talk about how important discipline was in his career. The theme continued throughout the day, with campers learning to be disciplined on and off the court.

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“We’re just making sure they understand that nothing comes easy,” Trey said. “You’re gonna have bad days, but discipline gets you through it. That’s what makes you the man or woman you want to become.”

On Monday, the word was gratitude.

Campers were taught how to be thankful for what they had in life, and it seemed to affect them. During Regina’s speech about gratitude, one kid stood up and talked about how thankful he was for his family and how much they meant to him.

The camper even turned back to his family in the crowd to personally thank them for everything they’ve done in his life. Moments like that make holding their camp worth it for the Culvers.

“It was so sweet for him to do that,” Regina Culver said with a smile. “We just want to do everything we can to help them build character, because that’s important.”

Wednesday’s word will be integrity, and Thursday’s word will be love. Love was purposefully chosen as the word for the final day because it’s the “core of everything.”

Trey is already noticing how everyone within the camp is spreading love. On Monday, a camper sang him happy birthday unprompted. Trey got him a pair of shoes signed by his brother in return.

He also mentioned how much he loves his family for coming together to give back to their home. Trey and Jarrett grew up learning about basketball and life together through camps like their own and want to give kids in his community the same opportunity.

Ultimately, that’s what the Culvers want to do — bring the Lubbock community together.

“It starts with the youth. They’re our future,” Trey said. “The way they look up to us literally, but also figuratively, is really special. You can feel the warmth, and the love and the joy in this gym all week.

“I want the kids to keep learning. We want them to learn their basketball moves. Our goal is when they leave each day, they can tell their parents and tell themselves what they learned. We want to see them develop on the basketball court, and more importantly, develop as young men and women and learn these principles. It’s fun when we come together. It’s a beautiful thing.”

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Jarrett Culver brings community together, teaches Lubbock youth valuable lessons with basketball camp