Jul. 21—Nathan Champion is making the most of his annual summer trip back home.
He held a series of basketball camps on Tuesday at the Berry Bowl, including local camps during the day and a high school elite camp in the evening.
It was a chance for the Le Moyne men’s basketball coach and Logansport native to give back to the community from which he comes from. And the elite camp was a chance for him to get a first-hand look at potential recruits from the state of Indiana.
“It’s great to be back in Logansport and being at the place where I grew up and learned how to play basketball and try to give back to the community,” Champion said. “The youth camp is awesome. You get to see young players that just want to play basketball. To me that’s the best part. For tonight’s event with the high school kids, it’s a great opportunity to be seen in front of a college coach but it’s also a great opportunity for me to grow a recruiting network here in Indiana, which is what we’re trying to do. Us being a northeast school, we offer a unique opportunity to our kids here in Indiana and a place to kind of get out of the Midwest.
“For me it’s a lot of fun. I get to be out on the floor. Tonight there will be a couple guys who played in a Logansport uniform who will be helping me out. We have Matt Jennings and Kory Rombold helping me out. I’m really looking forward to being out on the floor again with those guys too.”
Le Moyne is an NCAA Division II school located in Syracuse, New York. D-II schools have 10 full-ride scholarships available per team, while D-I schools have 13 full-ride scholarships per team.
The planned annual elite camp in the Berry Bowl could lead to Le Moyne scholarships being handed out to Indiana kids.
“This is something that we’ll use as a good tool for us to get to see some kids that maybe some other people don’t get to see. Hopefully it works out for us,” Champion said.
Le Moyne has not played a game since March 1, 2020. The Dolphins were set to compete in the D-II National Tournament before the NCAA canceled all winter and spring championships due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
It was Champion’s first year at the helm at his alma mater. He went 19-9 and the Dolphins earned the fifth seed in the East Regional. He was named the Northeast-10 Conference Coach of the Year.
The Northeast-10 Conference Council of Presidents then voted to cancel the regular season and championship competition for winter sports last season.
The Dolphins’ first game this upcoming season will be the annual exhibition game against Syracuse on Nov. 1 at the Carrier Dome.
Champion said the Dolphins will have an inexperienced team going into the season.
“We have 14 of our 15 guys on our roster have never played in a Le Moyne uniform, so we’re in a really unique situation,” he said. “But at the same time it’s a great opportunity for our guys to come in and have some competition right away and really jell together through competing every day and that’s what we’re really looking for. Le Moyne has a campus that keeps growing which is awesome. It’s a lot of fun to see just the transformation over the years. But I love being back there and love the opportunity we have again this year.”
He said it was tough to miss an entire season.
“I think the biggest thing is just missing being with your team and playing and seeing guys grow and mature over the year, seeing them grow from being a freshman to becoming a sophomore, being inexperienced to being an experienced team. So I think for us it’s something that we really look at as we had 14 guys have a redshirt year. I think that’s something that can really benefit us and I thought we got a lot better as we worked through our workouts and practices and things like that. But we still have a long ways to go. Like I said, 14 out of our 15 guys have never played. It’s a great opportunity for us but a huge challenge as well.”