Harley Knosher's Medalist Camps

Starting in the late 1980's thru the early 2000's- most major colleges had "team camps" for both boys and girls basketball. For Galesburg girls, we went first to University of Michigan. Their team camp was in late July or early August for 6 days of basketball. Later we went to University of North Carolina, Notre Dame, Purdue, Wisconsin, and Missouri. 

In the 1990's most of these were 5-6 days long. And usually the schools would offer multiple sessions- you could choose what dates you wanted to go. But over time, the team camps have faded at many schools. Fewer schools offer camps, and usually the camps now are only 2-3 days. 

But before the major universities got started up with team camps. Knox College and Coach Harley Knosher hosted the Medalist Basketball Camps. Medalist ran camps throughout the midwest at small colleges in the late '70's and early '80's. If you were a serious basketball player, this is where you wanted to go to play basketball. Knox had one week sessions, and often a couple boys and a couple girls sessions. 

With "team camps", the players from one school play together in games. It is like one big tourney with players playing game after game. And often they will also receive some skill instruction or motivation sessions. These camps were not "team camps" but rather were "skills camps." So players from schools were placed in groups where they would do skills stations. And they were also played on a "team" to play games. 

The typical schedule was to have a 45 minute lecture in the morning on certain skills, then do an hour and half of stations working on skills. Then in the afternoon this was repeated but the afternoon finished by playing games. And in the evening they came back to play another set of games. 

The talent some years was unbelievable at the Knox Medalist Camps. One year the entire teams from East St. Louis, Richwoods, Galesburg, Leland Michigan, and Traverse City Michigan attended the camp. East St. Louis and Richwoods would battle for the State title. East St. Louis included Jackie Joyner Kersey. Leland Michigan battled for the State title that year also. So the camp included the top players and top teams from two different states. The players were divided up so one team might have a couple players from each of those schools for the camp games. 

We have gone onto many team camps. And we have gone to many good team camps. But the Medalists Camps at Knox had some of the best talent that has ever been at one camp at one time. 

The highlight of all the boys and girls camps was Coach Harley Knosher. He organized the camps so there was little time to rest, and his emphasis was enthusiasm. Players and coaches were expected to really work in the drills- no chairs allowed for coaches or players. And coaches were assigned to coach a team in the games. And the worst thing that could happen was to be assigned to coach a team who was playing a team coached by Knosher. He would get his team to play so hard that it always became a mismatch.