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Kramer basketball camp blends fun and fund-raising for kids

Chris Kramer (third from left), a star basketball player at Huntington North High School and Purdue University, poses with his teammates on the EWE Baskets, a professional basketball team based in Oldenburg, Germany, after winning the German Cup in April. Kramer returns to Huntington next week for a youth basketball camp, where all proceeds will go toward purchasing backpacks for local children.
Chris Kramer (third from left), a star basketball player at Huntington North High School and Purdue University, poses with his teammates on the EWE Baskets, a professional basketball team based in Oldenburg, Germany, after winning the German Cup in April. Kramer returns to Huntington next week for a youth basketball camp, where all proceeds will go toward purchasing backpacks for local children. Photo provided.

Originally published July 2, 2015

Chris Kramer is talking about backpacks.

Kramer, the former basketball star at Huntington North High School and Purdue University who now plays professionally in Germany, is back in Indiana for the summer, preparing for a youth basketball camp he’ll be hosting at Crestview Middle School. All proceeds from the camp will be going toward the Steps for Success program at The Awakening Community Church, which will give away brand-new backpacks to local children before the start of the forthcoming school year.

And that has Kramer excited.

“I love helping kids,” enthuses the 27-year-old. “I remember what it was like when I got a new backpack to go to school. I thought I was the coolest kid on the block.”

Kramer hopes that the new backpacks might even influence how the youngsters donning them feel about going to school.

“It’ll be something to make kids be a little bit more,” he pauses, “maybe be a little bit more excited to go to school.”

The backpack idea is one Kramer’s had rattling around in his head since last summer, when he’d hoped to hold a basketball camp in Huntington for the second time, but was precluded from doing so due to a busy schedule involving participation in a summer hoops league and workouts.

He’s back this year, though, with a two-day camp scheduled for Wednesday, July 8, and Thursday, July 9. First through fourth-graders will participate on the first day while fifth through eighth-graders will attend on the second. Both days will feature instruction on shooting, ball-handling and defense, along with competitive drills and contests.

“Try to see strides from the beginning of camp in the morning to the end of camp in the afternoon,” states Kramer of his goal for the event. “We want to try to see some strides in everyone there and really see that we helped out some kids.”

Kramer says he and his fellow coaches will probably end up having just as much fun as the campers.

“I’m going crazy when teams win or when somebody wins ‘knockout,’ he shares. “I have a blast, too. After the second day, I can’t really talk. I don’t have a voice.

“I enjoy it and I think it helps the kids, too, a little bit when the coaches are having a good time.”

In addition to fostering an instructive, entertaining atmosphere, it’s also important to Kramer to take a moment to encourage campers to pursue their dreams.

“When I talk to the kids at lunchtime, I just try to really stress to them that just because you’re from Huntington, or wherever you’re from, your dreams and everything you want to do is right in front of you,” he says. “You have all the tools necessary to be whatever you want to be and not to settle for something that (you) don’t want to do.

“I tell them to shoot for the stars – and if you end up in the clouds, then you’re still pretty successful.”

For Kramer, shooting for the stars took him to Germany. After graduating from Purdue in 2010, the two-time Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year played for the Indiana Pacers’ summer league team and participated in the Milwaukee Bucks’ training camp before becoming a member of the Fort Wayne Mad Ants. Going into 2011, Kramer felt confident about his NBA chances.

But a league lockout that July changed everything.

“So, I get done with all these workouts in summer league, the lockout happens and, obviously, it lasted for months and they’re arguing about money and everything,” Kramer recalls. “So, it was a perfect opportunity to make a plunge and go overseas.”

Kramer got a taste of playing outside the United States when he played in Puerto Rico that summer, but ventured even farther away from home when he signed a deal to play for the s.Oliver Baskets in Würzburg, Germany, for the 2011-12 season. They were members of the Federal Basketball League (FBL), which is Germany’s highest professional league. After his stint in Würzburg, Kramer stayed in the FBL, inking with EWE Baskets, in Oldenburg, in 2012. He’s been there ever since.

Kramer has enjoyed the experience of being in Germany and credits one of his fellow American teammates with making him feel at home.

“My teammate Rickey Paulding and his family, they kind of took me in and kind of made me a part of their family,” says Kramer of Paulding, a Detroit native who played collegiately at the University of Missouri. “So, (I) spent five days a week there in most cases, after my first season in Oldenburg.

“So I’m very thankful for them.”

From a basketball standpoint, Kramer says the FBL has been a good fit for him, with its physical style of play reminding him of what it was like to compete in the Big Ten with Purdue.

He also praises his coaches for putting him in a position to succeed.
“I’ve been very fortunate with the coaches that I’ve had, that kind of play into the style of player that I am,” explains Kramer, the team’s starting shooting guard. “So, that’s obviously a big help… Kind of helps the mental side of it, where you know what to expect and you can go out there and play as hard as you can, just try to do whatever you can to help your team win and you know that, at the end of the day, you’ll be appreciated and probably win a lot of games that way.”

The highlight of Kramer’s time in Germany came this past season when he helped Oldenburg win its first-ever German Cup. The annual tournament, held in April, sees the top six teams in the FBL, along with the team that hosts the Cup’s Final Four, face off. Oldenburg happened to be the host team, which granted it an automatic bid to the semifinals. Once there, Kramer and Co. upset the tournament’s fifth-seeded team before edging the No. 2 club for the Cup.

And the victory was all the more sweet because Kramer’s parents, Jon and Sue, were there to see it happen.

“They had a blast,” says Kramer. “It was an unbelievable time. Everyone just really enjoyed that.

“I feel very fortunate that they were able to come then.”

Kramer will be returning to Oldenburg next season. Until then, he intends to enjoy the offseason, conducting his camp before vacationing in Chicago and Florida with his girlfriend, Allie. Between vacations, he’ll be training at Athletes with Purpose in Fort Wayne once a week, staying limber with yoga two to three times a week and keeping his basketball skills sharp at Carroll High School, which is close to where he lives.

“I can go to Carroll and shoot and do all the basketball stuff I need to over there,” he says. “They’re very nice and kind of help me out over there.”

Kramer expects the backpacks purchased with the proceeds from his camp to be handed out in August. He says he may have to return to Germany before that time comes – but he can take solace in the fact that as he’s packing up for another trip overseas, children in Huntington will soon be packing up, too.