Southland hosts Wings Elite Exposure Camp for aspiring basketball athletes

CARDWELL – A Saturday basketball camp hosted at Southland C-9 High School was a first for the area, and it provided a unique experience for about 35 promising student athletes.

The Wings Elite Exposure Camp led by Dr. Lee St. Pierre and his son Parker St. Pierre of Jonesboro, Ark., promised just what its title promised.

"We're here today to get exposure for these high-school boys to play at the next level," Parker St. Pierre said. "It's a really big deal to have these top-level players here.

"We're going to make sure these athletes get exposure for sure," the former Arkansas State University shooter added. "I'm excited to be here and just as excited to see these boys get the kind of notice they deserve."

Dr. Lee St. Pierre agreed.

"We're with Arkansas Wings," he said. "We kind of resurrected this team from previous ownership.

"We're trying to get exposure for some of the kids and put a spotlight on them so college coaches in the area and around the country can see them," he continued. "We have a lot of kids from Northeast Arkansas and Southeast Missouri that are searching for places to play and to get an education so they can provide for their future families. Basketball is a good instrument to get them to that level."

Lee St. Pierre noted some participants didn't have the means to attend, but that didn't stand in the way.

"So we were able to offer scholarships to assist them with the entry fee," he said. "We charged $150 and were able to get that down to $50 for some of the boys. 

"We tried to make it affordable but still provide all the necessities," he continued. "We have video footage going on. We have a professional photographer here today doing video and drone video. We're broadcasting this to YouTube and live social media so coaches can sit at home and watch this."

Because of certain NCAA guidelines, some coaches are denied access to the building, Dr. Lee St. Pierre noted. 

"But they would like to see how these kids actually perform when they're competing against high-level talent," he explained. "The nice thing about this is they can go to practice, coach their Division 1 teams, come back and pull it up on their phones and say, 'How's that kid from Malden, Missouri or how's that kid from Jonesboro, Arkansas? Can they really play or is it all hype?' A lot of that gets skewed when it's up on social media. This is our first event with this particular staff and we couldn't be happier to be here at Cardwell." 

Beginning early Saturday morning, young men from Missouri, Arkansas and Tennessee representing approximately 25 high schools warmed up on the court with the hopes their A-games would be noticed by college coaches and scouts, Parker said.

"We can't talk directly about which colleges will be here because of NCAA regulations," he said. "But we can say there will be multiple NAIA D-2 and D-3 coaches here, as well as multiple scouts from Arkansas and the Missouri area that will be able to promote these kids out to the public. Some run websites. Some run newspapers. Some are posted on Next-Up Sports' social media accounts."

The program began with stretching exercises and proceeded to station work "to see what their fundamentals look like," Parker noted.

"Then we'll go to 5-v-5 and pick our top 20 kids at the camp and our top 10 at the camp," Parker said. "After that we'll go into a dunk contest and a potential one-on-one contest if time permits. "It should be a great day," he added. "A lot of kids to be seen and a lot of talent to be seen here."