Dick Edwards Basketball Camp: A summertime tradition shuts down  

Posted Jul. 4, 2016 at 6:00 PM

For thousands of boys throughout the area, the Dick Edwards Basketball Camp was almost a rite of passage.

For dozens and dozens of coaches, the camp provided an opportunity to get away from it all in beautiful surroundings where they could hone their craft and enjoy some camaraderie.

Most anyone associated with the Dick Edwards Basketball Camp would agree its closure after 45 years is not a positive outcome from the inevitable march of time. Citing diminished participation, camp director Denis Willens has folded an annual tradition near and dear to his heart, where pre-teen and teenage boys learned about the games of basketball and life in the Sierra Mountains.

“It’s just a sign of the times,” said Willens, a 76-year-old Stockton resident, who ran the camp for 35 years and coached there every year prior. “The outside interests the kids have, it just didn’t work out for them to come to camp.”

Kids now are involved in year-round sports and travel teams, leaving little time for summer camps.

“Camp demographics have changed,” said former Lincoln and St. Mary’s basketball coach Jon Gustorf, who coached more than 10 times at the Dick Edwards camp. “(Amateur Athletic Union) teams play during the summer, there are more team events and tournaments and I think that’s changed the landscape.”

Founded in 1971 by Edwards, the late former head men’s basketball coach at the University of the Pacific, the camp was for boys in elementary school through high school. The campers received individual instruction from area high school, community college and four-year college coaches.

The camp was a week-long event but had been pared down to three days in recent years. Willens said 35 boys took part the first year at Seigler Springs Resort in Lake County. After a year at Hoberg’s Resort in Lake County and several years at Silver Lake east of Jackson, the camp moved to the Sierra Outdoor School near Sonora, its home the past 38 years. Attendance peaked in 2009, when 235 boys participated. About five years ago, the camp changed to a team format and the numbers dropped.

“We couldn’t get a commitment from enough teams,” said Willens, whose 46th Dick Edwards Basketball Camp was slated to run Thursday through Saturday. “There was a lack of teams that wanted to come. We canceled about six weeks ago.”

“Denis put his heart and soul into that camp,” Gustorf said. “It was his baby and he loved it and I think every coach who worked it said they liked working with Denis, and I’m sorry to see it go.”

Willens also closed the Nor-Cal Basketball Team Camp for Girls, which he directed for 38 years at the Sierra Outdoor School.

Willens took over the Dick Edwards Basketball Camp about a year prior to Edwards’ untimely death from a heart attack in 1980 at age 50. Edwards was coaching at Montana State (now Eastern Montana) at the time. Edwards had coached at Cal from 1973-78 after a prosperous nine-year stint at Pacific. Edwards led the Tigers to three West Coast Athletic Conference championships and three NCAA Tournament appearances.

Edwards was a tough, demanding coach, but he brought a family atmosphere to the Pacific program. Tom Jones, who played for Edwards at Pacific, said Coach wanted his players to spend time with him at the camp.

“As this thing moved on, he always made sure the guys who could get up there got up there,” said Jones, who went on to a teaching and coaching career in the Stockton Unified School District after graduating from Pacific in 1970. “So many of his players went into coaching; it was kind of natural.”

Jones, Pat Douglass, Bob Thomason, Dick Davey, Bill Stricker, Pat Foley, Bill Wilson, Rob DeWitt and John Nicholls were just several of Edwards’ players who not only coached at his camp but went on to have successful coaching careers. Thomason, for instance, led the Tigers to five NCAA Tournament appearances in 25 seasons at his alma mater. His best friend and former Pacific teammate, Douglass, coached at Manteca High and succeeded Edwards at Montana State before he led Cal State Bakersfield to an NCAA Division II title. Douglass then coached at UC Irvine for 13 years.

Douglass helped out with the Edwards camp for 20 years and said the man and the camp profoundly affected his life.

“Coach Edwards had the ability to create high intensity and all of the players of his that went into coaching were successful,” said Douglass, who is retired from coaching. “He brought in great people. Guys just did really well because they played for him. It was a special time in my coaching career to be associated with that camp.”

Many of Edwards’ players who chose careers other than coaching coached at the camp, including former NBA center John Gianelli. The camps also attracted outstanding coaches from outside Pacific, including Gustorf, Edwards’ former Cal assistant and former San Jose State head coach Bill Berry, Len Wilkins from Hartnell College, Steve Thornton from Tracy and West high schools, and Rick Francis, who coached at Sonora High for 42 years.

“It was a great environment,” said Gustorf, who led the Trojans from 1977-79 and the Rams from 1979-2001. “You’re up in the mountains, you smell the pine trees and there’s red dirt everywhere. It was a great environment for the coaches and kids.”

In the early days, the amenities were a bit more primitive than those at the Sierra Outdoor School, which has an indoor gym, level outdoor courts, and dormitory and cafeteria facilities. At Silver Lake, the boys stayed four-to-a-room inside wood cabins and shared the bathroom and showers. The generator would cut off at 9 p.m. each night, casting the entire property in total darkness.

“We had a lot of fun at Silver Lake,” said DeWitt, who played for Edwards at Pacific from 1967-69, and coached the Delta College men’s basketball team to a state championship in 1984. “It wasn’t the greatest place on earth. The courts were a little uneven and the altitude was 7,000 feet, but being up in the mountains was kind of neat. The Sonora place was a lot better.”

For many of the boys, the camp was their first time away from home. Ron DuBois, a former standout player at Lodi High and the head men’s basketball coach at UC Santa Cruz, went to the camp with his brother, Joe, for at least 10 consecutive years.

“Every kid probably remembers the first time they were away from their parents and having their sleeping bag,” DuBois said. “You’d meet new friends from all over the valley, guys I would compete against and coach against from all over the county and beyond. It was a great experience.”

Another regular camper was a boy from French Camp named Scott Brooks. The East Union High legend played 10 seasons in the NBA and coached the Oklahoma City Thunder for five seasons. Brooks is preparing for his first season as head coach of the Washington Wizards.

“He is a competitor and he was a good player, but no one envisioned Scott being a 10-year NBA player,” Willens said. “But he was self motivated, and had some great support.”

Willens was motivated to run the camp, in part, to keep Edwards’ name alive. Willens was Edwards’ assistant coach during his nine-season tenure.

“It motivated a lot of us to keep it going, to keep his name out there,” Willens said. “This was something he founded and he cherished going up there that one week, whether it was in Lake County or Silver Lake and we ended up in Sonora. It was a camp that the coaches and kids really enjoyed.”