Peoria Pundit

I had the please of attending a meeting of the Optimist Club yesterday as the guest of Merle Widmer. We had some blogging business to discuss later, but I guess he also wanted me to hear what the speaker had to say. The speaker was Bob Michael. No, not the former Congressman (whose last name is spelled “Michel”). This is the Bob Michael who made a lot of money in the sales game, but decided in his 50s to become a teacher.

I’m glad I took Merle up on his invitation, because Mr. Michael had some  interesting things to say. He walked about the relationships he has with his students. And by “relationship,” he doesn’t mean pal around, buddy-buddy. He means that he’s the teacher, they have to listen and behave properly in class, and that once the kids in his class understand that, they get alone fine, and in some cases do very well.

Not to say he doesn’t advocate taking an interest in kid’s lives. He does. A frustrated student athlete himself, Mr. Michael believes that sports gives adults an opportunity to take an interest in students, especially at the grade school level, that they otherwise might not have.

He’s trying to organize a “Pistol Pat Basketball USA” camp in Peoria later this summer. Right now, he’s trying to gather about $2,500, which he thinks is what they would need to offer the program and provide enough scholarship money to those kids who couldn’t otherwise afford the $100 fee.

“I’ve got kids already lined up,” he said. “All we need is the financing.”

Michael has wanted to bring this camp to Peoria since meeting “Pistol” Pat Williams, who used to do clinics with “Pistol” Pete Maravich, the former NBA player who holds the college season scoring record. When Maravich died, Williams created Pistol Pat Basketball, a clinic that promoted an anti-drug and anti-violence message.

Michael said that Williams sees basketball as a vehicle to teach kids about life, and maybe, can get them hooked up with a mentor beyond basketball.

The clinic would be open to about 25-50 kids, age 7-17. Michael hasn’t finalized a location, but it looks like it might be held at Carver Center. If he can’t get a clinic set up in time for this summer, he will do one next summer.

This entry was posted on July 2, 2008 at 3:42 pm and is filed under Local . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed Both comments and pings are currently closed.