COME TOGETHER, NO MATTER WHAT
Shen boys basketball team helps make training video for Special Olympics team
CLIFTON PARK, NY » The New York State regional and state basketball tournament was interrupted by the coronavirus, like several other high schools competing across the country to be crowned the best. One group whose season was also cut short, that didn’t get as much attention, was the Special Olympics teams.
Chris Hughes is a volunteer with the Special Olympics and the head coach of the power lifting team. After the coronavirus broke out, he began making stretching and workout videos.
“I was trying to think of a way that our athletes can still remain active through this time. A lot of them rely on the Special Olympics programs for their activity. With that gone we needed to do something. I do video editing, occasionally, in my marketing work, so I said well, I’ll make some videos,” said Hughes. “Then the Special Olympics basketball was going on, so I wanted to know if there was anything else I we could do, so we decided to produce a basketball video.”
There was only one problem. Hughes is a power lifting and workout coach. His strengths do not lie in teaching basketball.
“I don’t play basketball. I have never played basketball in my life,” he said. “Thankfully the Shenendehowa basketball team said that they would love to help, so it was actually perfect.”
This was the first time that the Plainsmen had gotten together for an extended period since the NYS tournament was postponed.
“We met quickly on Thursday after [the games] got cancelled, but that was it,” said junior forward Devin Dzikas. “We were just trying to keep up-beat. We still had a great season and were able sectionals. So it was good that it happened when it did instead of a week before.”
“I’m definitely hoping it’s just postponed and they don’t cancel it. I’d love to play another game,” he added on the tournament.
Andrew Martin, a junior guard, talked about how his squad found out about helping with making the video and what they did Wednesday afternoon at Clifton Commons.
“I found out about it in our basketball group-chat. Someone sent it and asked if anyone wanted to do it. Coming in, I didn’t really know what to expect. Today, Chris explained to us what was going on and how we were doing some stretches, and then some passes and a little bit of every facet of the game for the camera. It went really smoothly.”
A key aspect of the shoot was breaking it into short segments, so they are easy to follow along with.
“One of the big things is that if you put together a twenty minute video, you’re going to lose attention pretty quickly. These are quick, five, ten minute videos that can be thrown up on your phone and you can just go through basketball footwork and dribbling,” said Hughes.
The Plainsmen now return to the waiting game, to see when and if the state tournament will be rescheduled or spring sports will begin.