Basketball for the small supplies enjoyable for all

On a dreary Sunday afternoon, kids in Kyrie Irving jerseys and Lakers uniforms ran via basketball drills within the Baldwin School gymnasium.

The hoops have been lowered, making it simpler for the youngsters to make photographs. Coaches stood beneath the nets rebounding balls again to the youngsters, smiling no matter whether or not they went in.

Despite the occasional outbursts from children attempting to entertain their friends, the youngsters placed on their sport faces when the Cambridge Basketball Lab coaches reentered the main focus to a sport of sharks and minnows, wherein the youngsters attempt to dribble previous the coaches with out getting tagged.

“I love coaching the younger kids – they make me feel young again,” mentioned Douglas Pinto, 37, first-year coach for the Cambridge Basketball Lab.

Kids take part in a drill at a Cambridge Basketball Lab observe in October 2025.The Cambridge Basketball Lab, a mentorship and ability improvement program, expanded to the elementary faculty degree for six weeks this fall. Previously, this system supplied practices year-round just for center and highschool college students 4 nights per week.

In the brand new elementary faculty program, kids in grades 2 via 5 can take part in basketball exercises. The coed practices happen on Sunday afternoons in two classes – one for second and third graders, the opposite for fourth and fifth graders.

“The way they talk, the way they dance, they’re so funny, and it’s just fun to hang around these kids,” Pinto mentioned.

A want to make a distinction

The Cambridge Basketball Lab was based in 2023 by Matt Meyersohn, 44, a mentor and coach for the group, and a former volunteer basketball coach at Cambridge Rindge and Latin for the final 22 years.

Meyersohn had been identified with stage three colon most cancers in 2022 and went on medical go away. “For the first time in my adult life, I wasn’t working,” Meyersohn mentioned.

During his restoration, Meyersohn mentioned, he considered methods he wished to make an influence on the world and neighborhood. Kids would ask him if he would come and shoot balls with them, however he realized that gyms typically weren’t obtainable. So he went to the Cambridge faculty committee to ask how they might create alternatives for youths to observe basketball for free of charge.

The Cambridge Basketball Lab was born, with funding and partnerships with organizations such because the Red Sox Foundation and the Boston Celtics Shamrock Foundation. The Cambridge recreation division helps cowl staffing prices, to pay the coach mentors, and Cambridge Public Schools donates gymnasium house.

Creating alternatives

The companions embrace Harvard University’s girls’s basketball program, which has had 5 gamers grow to be coach-mentors during the last two years. The workforce additionally invited 30 ladies from this system to make use of the Harvard girls’s basketball amenities for a personal observe with the workforce.

After the success of the center and highschool program, Pinto mentioned, Meyersohn pitched the concept to him to develop the practices to extra age teams. He mentioned there weren’t many alternatives for youthful children to play basketball, and fogeys have been asking round for ideas on the place their children might go.

This fall, elementary faculty college students take part in basketball practices for six weeks. Although the Cambridge Basketball Lab practices are freed from cost 12 months spherical for center and highschool college students, the six-week elementary program prices $30 for Cambridge residents and $60 for non-residents. The charge helps cowl the price of having extra coaches on the elementary degree.

“My son looks forward to coming every week.” Kanoe Williams.

The new elementary faculty program has been thrilling for folks like Kanoe Williams, 42, who sits within the auditorium and watches her son, Rex, play.

“It has been so uplifting,” Williams mentioned. “It’s really nice to come to a place that’s inclusive, that’s focused on helping all the kids gain skills and not coming into any conflictual competition with each other.”

Beyond Meyersohn and Pinto, this system has volunteer coach-mentors like Baileigh Sinaman-Daniel and C.J. Leonard, who’re student-athletes at Lesley University, and Deondre Starling, who went to CRLS and was coached by Meyersohn. Starling now runs his personal nonprofit, Scholars earlier than Athletes, which mentors children to give attention to teachers whereas growing athletic abilities.

Williams mentioned that she has a lot respect for the volunteer coaches, and that Meyersohn is her son’s favourite coach.

“My son looks forward to coming every week,” Williams mentioned.

This story is a part of a partnership between Cambridge Day and the Boston University Department of Journalism.