All is quiet inside the gymnasium at Elwood High in Deer Lake Wednesday morning.
It is changeover day at the 2018 Newfoundland and Labrador Winter Games and the athletes arriving for the second half of competition have yet to arrive.
It is vastly different to what it will be Thursday morning.
Then, it’ll be filled with the sounds of squeaking sneakers, whistles and coaches shouting instructions to their players. Its where the male basketball portion of the Games will be played.
More than likely, Jim Feltham will be somewhere in the gym watching those games unfold. For the last several years, the 71-year-old Feltham has been the head coach of the Elwood High male basketball team and is the convener for this tournament.
He is a basketball institution in Deer Lake, having coached at the high school for more than two decades prior to his most recent return. In total, he has been on the Lakers bench for close to four decades.
On Wednesday morning, Feltham stood chatting with two of the host basketball coaches in the gym at Elwood.
As it turns out, Ryan Chaulk (female coach) and Troy Coish (male coach) are both former players at Elwood and were coached by Feltham in the past.
“It is nice to see all of these young men who played for Elwood back coaching here,” said Feltham. “It’s really gratifying.”
You could probably call the longtime coach the godfather of Deer Lake basketball. He helped spark an interest in the game decades ago and is still helping out.
While basketball in Deer Lake dropped off for a couple of years, it is in the midst of a resurgence.
Feltham is still leading the charge at the high school, with the help of Chaulk on the female side of things.
Meanwhile, the Deer Lake Lightning club program is experiencing solid growth under the tutelage of Coish, Gary Curtis, T.J. Power and others.
“The guys on these teams are coming down and watching the senior boys play,” said Feltham. “What we’ve re-established going back eight years now is that basketball culture that Deer Lake was once famous for and that Elwood was once famous for.”
The system they’ve set up in Deer Lake — as well as Corner Brook — is going to pay dividends in the long run.
As a former basketball coach in Bay Roberts, it is a system the area needs if it wants to push beyond being a basketball doormat at the high school level.
A minor system would help fix that.
The evidence of such can be seen in St. John’s, where high school rosters are littered with club team athletes. The same goes for the provincial programs.
The Lightning club program allows athletes to learn the fundamentals like passing, dribbling and shooting at an earlier age. If they can learn what foot to jump off for a left-handed layup before getting to junior high, they’re better set up to succeed as they progress through the game.
Those fundamentals carry over to junior high and high school basketball.
It is what every sport should strive for if they’re hoping to build a game in a certain area. You can’t just throw athletes to the wolves without the proper instruction.
That allows coaches to focus more on implementing game plans and showing their young charges how to play the game.
Those involved with Deer Lake basketball feel the Games are a prime place to announce themselves.
It’s a place for them to get on their soapbox, beat their chest and tell the province Deer Lake is a home for basketball.
There’s more than just hockey in the west coast town and they’re hoping to prove there is a viable option for young athletes.
Coish and his partner on the host team bench, Curtis, point to a pre-Games pep rally at Xavier Junior High for the team.
There, the young children were in awe of the older athletes. It’s a small sign that basketball is going to be OK in the community.
“The future of basketball in Deer Lake is bright for the next four to five years,” said Coish. “Very bright.”
— Nicholas Mercer is the online editor at The Western Star. He lives in Corner Brook and can be reached at [email protected]
