Youngsters ages 5-9 took last week to learn about the game of hoops at the Rowdy Raider Basketball Camp, which was held at Pine High School.

Pine boys and girls basketball coach Eddie Vaughn taught the clinic to 47 children for three afternoon hours last Monday-Thursday.

Vaughn said the camp primarily focused on ball handling and shooting drills, which they broke down into four components and did memory work to help the campers.

He said the major emphasis was on shooting the basketball correctly.

“We dribble, to dribble, you have to ball handle,” Vaughn said. “We teach them little keys about shooting correctly. I’m excited about how quickly this group has picked up on the things we’re teaching them. I’m just incredibly excited about this.”

Part of Wednesday’s camp had the participants working on dribbling the ball with their strong hand and then after that going to their weaker hand.

Then he brought out a third basketball for them to try dribbling three basketballs.

Vaughn also said they brought out cones and taught the campers about dribbling through cones.

Vaughn had a lot of people helping him with the event, including Raiders boys assistant coach Josh Williams, Pine’s girls assistant basketball Lynell Pope and his brother Ronnie Vaughn.

Eddie Vaughn said his brother was a great high school basketball player.

Vaughn also had some of his basketball players helping out at the camp, which he feels will help their basketball skills since they are having to teach it.

He praised all of the people who were working at the clinic.

“I’m lucky to have those knowledgeable people out there,” Vaughn said. “I’ve also got some of my high school players out there. They’re in secondary roles because they are still learning, but one of the great ways to learn something is to teach it. This is going to make them a better player just by helping younger kids learn to play.”

Vaughn was in his first year of coaching at Pine, but came over with 33 years of coaching experience.

This season, Vaughn coached the boys’ team to a 10-18 record after a slow start and they went 5-3 in District 8-2A play.

Pine’s girls’ team finished with a 22-10 record and went undefeated in District 8-2A at 8-0. The Lady Raiders made the playoffs as the No. 12 seed and captured their bi-district round game 53-36 over Episcopal of Baton Rouge.

The club played fifth seeded Jonesboro-Hodge in the regional round, but had its season with a 58-50 loss.

This week, Vaughn is conducting a clinic, which is more intense, for older children, ages 10-14.