Dixie Basketball Camp for boys in fifth grade through their senior year in high school is in its 51st summer and 43rd at Southwest Mississippi Community College, and Joe Dean Jr., who runs the camp, believes coaches returning year after year has been the key to its success.
The first session of Dixie Basketball Camp was last week, while the second session is this week. Dean, currently the Athletics Direct Report and Senior Vice President for Advancement at Birmingham Southern University in Alabama, first came to the camp as a kid with one of its founders, his father the late Joe Dean Sr. Dean Sr. was a guard for LSU in the 1950s and athletic director from 1987-2001. The camp started at LSU before moving to SMCC in 1974.
“The coaches that come back every year love the camp,” Dean said. “A lot of them actually came here as campers. They love being a part of the enthusiasm and the spirit. It creates continuity and stability, which is really the key to making the camp what it is summer after summer.”
Dean said Steve Lopinto, Joey Tolis, Scott Pughsley and Michael Napp have been gym leaders for at least 15 years.
Wallace gives local perspective
Bill Wallace, a 1985 Parklane Academy graduate, was a guard at SMCC the next two years and the Bears head coach from 1998-2011. He started helping with camp his third year as the head coach.
“It’s kind of a tradition,” he said. “It’s got its own culture. It’s just something that, if you’re a basketball guy, you kind of just love doing. We have a lot of fun. We work the kids hard. You create friendships through the coaches and the players. Friendship is something that’s really good.”
There are few local athletes at the camp and most of the individuals involved are from Louisiana.
“It’s a great thing,” Wallace said. “It’s good for our economy here. These people come from all over the place and come to this little part of the world every summer. It’s good for our school. We have over 500 kids come on our campus every summer.”
Wallace said one of his favorite moments came about 10 years ago when the main gym at SMCC had no air conditioning, and Brooks McElveen from Mountain Brook, Ala., helped his team win a 3-on-3 competition.
Three generations at camp
Scott Dean, son of Joe Dean Jr., came to the camp when he was 5-years-old, recalled walking around with his grandfather and wanting to play in the game room.
He became a camper at 9, was a guard at Vestavia Hills High School in Vestavia Hills, Ala., a suburb of Birmingham, and started coaching at the camp after graduating. He has been involved for 31 years.
“It’s kind of a brotherhood between all of the coaches that have been coming from all over the place, and we don’t get to see each other very often,” Scott Dean said. “You get to come back to a reunion of a bunch of guys that you love and you enjoy seeing and you get to hang out with for two weeks.”
Scott’s 4-year-old son, William, is at the camp for the first time his year. One of his highlights came as a sophomore in high school when he was finally able to beat Kelton Thompson’s team in a 3-on-3 championship. Thompson, who is two years older than Scott, is now a coach at the camp.
Beckman in his 31st summer
Chris Beckman, now the head coach at Episcopal High School in Baton Rouge, first came to the camp when he was a guard at St. Martin’s Episcopal School outside of New Orleans. His head coach, Greg Domeck, brought the team, and he was a camper for seven years and in his 24th summer as a coach.
“Back when I was playing in the 80s there weren’t a lot of all-star camps like there are now,” he said. “This was the camp in the south to come, and your whole team would come and get better. We just kept coming as a team. I’ve just always loved it and been back ever since.”
His sons Brent Valentine, 22, Blaine Valentine, 20, Chris Beckman Jr., 18, and Noah Beckman, 9, have all attended the camp. Noah is in his first year and the only son at the camp this summer. As a camper, Chris remembers beating Todd Kinchen’s team in a 3-on-3 championship game. Kinchen was a football and basketball player at LSU and a wide receiver in the NFL for the Rams, Broncos and Falcons.
Lopinto has fond memories
Lopinto, now the head coach at Covington High School in Covington, La., first came to the camp when he was an assistant to Barry Dotson at Fontainebleau High School in Mandeville, La. Dotson knew Dean, and Lopinto saw the camaraderie with coaches right away.
“You could see the specialness that it brings watching the kids grow and going through the trenches every day being here — the long day of the camp and how it’s just something special,” he said. “You could see it happening witnessing it live.”
Lopinto said he recalled McElveen’s team winning a 3-on-3 coming out of the loser’s bracket and another kid playing so hard that he had to be rushed to State Care PLLC in McComb to get punts of IVs in him.
Tolis comes to camp with dad
Tolis has been a coach at the camp for 18 summers and was a camper for four years. His dad, the late Art Tolis, was friends with Dean Sr.
Dean Sr. gave Joey is first pair of tennis shoes.
Art was an assistant coach at LSU and the University of Alabama and the head coach at the University of New Orleans.
Joey lives in Slidell, La., and is an assistant coach at Chalmette High School. He was a forward for one year at Angelina Junior College in Lufkin, Texas.
“As I got a little older, that’s what started me coming to the camp was because I knew the Dean family,” Tolis said. “What brings me back is the spirit of the camp and the fellowship of the coaches and being able to help these kids learn how to turn into young men in ways that computers and all this new technology and everything can’t do.”
Tolis’ son Kadin, 12, is in his third summer at Dixie Basketball Camp.
