Onome Eghagha is starting his third year with The South Simcoe Basketball Club, but he can’t seem to get enough. The 11-year-old Bradford resident is playing in both the rep and house leagues. And he’s also trying out for his school team.
“I just started watching basketball and then I started playing the sport and I got more interested in it,” says the Fieldcrest Elementary School student.
“If you let him, he will go play with Coach Mike almost every day,” says his mom, who explained that Onome had the chance to play with another team this year but opted to return to the South Simcoe club. “He said to me: ‘Mom, it’s not all about winning, Coach Mike teaches us how to play together as a team.’
“That’s how much Coach Mike has made an impact on his life.”
The South Simcoe Basketball Club is a nonprofit organization that prioritizes community over player development, says Gary Wise, a member of board of directors.
It was founded in 2013 and Michael Nadon, known as Coach Mike, joined the following year. Having benefitted from the coaching and mentoring of a local club as a kid in the 1990s, Nadon vowed he would give back by offering local children the positive experience he had learning and playing the game as a youth.
In addition to three rep teams for intermediate to advanced players aged nine to 18, there are recreation leagues for beginner to intermediate players from eight to 14 years old and a junior program geared to children five to eight years old. Skills training is also offered for beginners right up to advanced players from eight to 18.
“I was a sports junkie and it meant everything to just have the opportunity to play, and play local,” says Nadon, who serves as president of the club and coaches Onome’s U13 boys rep team this year. “So it’s an easy give back.”
Nadon, who now works as an IT administrator, played right through high school and his team at Holy Trinity Catholic High School was the school’s first basketball team to make it to the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations’ (OFSAA) tournament.
Basketball, he adds, was hugely influential and was the foundation for so many relationships, which continue to be an important part of his life today.
Nadon was named Bradford’s Volunteer of the Year on Canada Day for his involvement in the basketball club that not only supports youth but also contributes to other community efforts. The club provides bursaries of up to $1,000 to upstanding students involved in athletics. It’s also involved in the annual Walk for Chiari, a fundraiser benefiting Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children as well as the Parkinson’s walk. The club also contributes to the local charity, A Bradford Christmas.
Operating as a nonprofit organization that keeps community at the core of its efforts is integral to the club, say both Wise and Nadon. Many other sporting clubs, including those that play under the Ontario Basketball Association umbrella, operate as businesses, resulting in higher costs for the participants.
“In a world where everything’s going elite or academy and adult-driven, meaning adults are using youth sports income, we’re trying to keep it community-based, affordable, while still providing the best programming possible,” says Nadon.
The charge for kids playing in the Bradford’s club house league is in the $200 range per session. Those playing on the rep team pay $1,200. Other clubs, says Nadon, charge up to four times more.
The South Simcoe Basketball Club boasted more than 1,000 members prior to the pandemic and rebuilding continues with roughly half that number signing up post-pandemic.
Already the club has seen some of its members not just continue on playing basketball in high school and college-level basketball but also return to the club and other programs as coaches, reseeding the next generation of community mentors
“It’s been a real pleasure to work with the organization,” said Wise, whose nine-year-old son took advantage of some of the training last year and now plays on the club’s house league.
The club hosts fall, winter and spring sessions.
