Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Diary Of A Baller: Chance "The Gifted One" Ellis (NY) Entry #1


Hello Basketball Spotlight! My name is Chancellor "Chance" Ellis and I attend middle school at The Allen Christian School in Jamaica, New York. I am excited about sharing my day to day activities with basketball spotlight and I hope that it will be interesting reading about my exploits. First I would like to explain why we use Juice All Stars for AAU Nationals and Showcase tournaments. Brooklyn's Juice All Stars, led by the legendary Lincoln HS coach Dwyane "Tiny" Morton, have been a national showcase organization for high school basketball players for many years. Coach Morton was asked about starting a team that would represent the Brooklyn Juice All Stars on the middle school level. After evaluating the players he gave his approval. Secondly, Starrett City is named after an enormous housing complex made of many high rise apartment buildings that everyone can view from the Belt Parkway. This local organization has produced countless Div. I players and a number of NBA players over its many years of existence. I love playing for AAU/local coaches, Nathanial Slaughter, Jermaine Brown and Scott Benjamin. They have worked miracles with the egos of all the talented players on our team. We have so much talent on our team that we limit players from exploding for 30 to 40 points in order to have a more balanced attack. This method enabled us to win and to keep our team together for the long haul. Shout out to Hackettstown, NJ's Mike Silverthorn, our newest member, who has sacrifice his personal scoring accomplishments in order to fit in to a balanced winning team concept that has made Juice All Stars/Starrett City the best team in the region. Shout out to Anthony "AJ" Williams our selfless point guard who has passed up countless scoring opportunities to keep our team balanced offensively and give our high profile players a chance to shine.

Now on to my most recent activities! Last week I participated in the First Annual All NYC/Metro JHS Classic held at the IZOD Center in New Jersey. It was a who's who affair with many of the participants slated to attend top HS such as Lincoln, St. Anthony, St Benedict, Blair Academy, Christ the King, Rice, Bishop Loughlin, Archbishop Molloy, Cardozo. This all star game was different from all others because it had a workshop for the players teaching team about how they should conduct and carry themselves while representing their schools and other organizations on and off the court. It also had recruiting guidelines, academic eligibility, sharing the ball, etc...Basically don't let basketball use you...you need to use basketball as a tool to increase educational and career opportunities. The top scorers were Isaiah Whitehead for the White team and I led the Black team but we didn't receive any awards because this all star game's theme was about giving/sharing so there were only awards for rebounds, steals, assists, highest GPA, and the Give Back Citizenship Award given to the player who volunteered the most in their communities. This concept made for a great game of passing ,defense and a lot of hustle on the court and think more all star events should use this concept...what do you think about that Mr. Melton? lol

During the week in the evenings I have agility training and strength/conditioning because I have to improve this aspect of my game if I want to be successful playing in one of the toughest leagues in the country next year. My trainer name is Britton Kelly of Parisi Speed School. He trains all the top players in my area like Tobias & Tyler Harris, Omar Calhoun, Tavon Sledge and Jordan Fuchs. On weekends whenever I don't have early games I go to the legendary Jerry Powell for basketball conditioning and skills training. Jerry Powell's Basketball Results Techniques has appeared in many national and local magazines as well as countless newspaper articles and he has a long list of NBA/college/high school clients. I have a lot of work ahead of me so I needed to surround myself with the best trainers my family could fine.

This weekend was spent moonlighting with Coach Munch's NY Team Scan. Juice All Stars/Starrett City wasn't participating in the Playaz Spring Fling so I thought it would be a good idea to team up with a former teammate Shavar Newkirk and beat our former nemesis the NY Gauchos for another time. I went to practice Friday and Coach Munch had about 10 different stations set up after we did dribbling and running drills. It was like a torture chamber! I had no idea how hard Team Scan worked on all aspects of basketball. Conrad Chambers along with a few of my Juice team mates joined Team Scan on Saturday in the Spring Fling Tournament. It was like an all star team Team Scan had assembled. We had 14 players that Coach Munch had to juggle in and out but we still won all three games. The last game was against the new NY Gauchos 14U team because the old one decided for some strange reason to stop competing in the 14U division which they had dominated until a year ago. The NY Gauchos fans were not happy to see this Team Scan and they let Coach Munch know immediately before the game and later after their loss. Basically, it was too much drama for Coach Munch and his team. So Coach Munch decided that they will go to the semi finals without the new additions and his Team Scan rallied and won their first big time tournament with their original players. Shout out to all the Team Scan players for accepting and playing with us and for winning the 2010 Spring Fling without us. Take that NY Gauchos 14U team...they didn't need us to get the job done.

That's all for now. Thank you for letting me share my day to day activities with you. I hope you found it interesting. Until next time.

Chance "The Gifted One" Ellis---Class of 2014