Alumni games help high school basketball programs raise money

Members of today’s Camas girls basketball team (in black) took on Camas alumni (in white) during a fundraiser for the basketball program Thursday evening. The boys alumni played a game later in the night. Alumni games throughout the region are becoming more popular. Photo by Paul Valencia

Camas highlighted today’s athletes with yesterday’s stars on Thursday

The women went on a power play for a few seconds late in Thursday evening’s game.

They had an 8-on-5 advantage on the basketball court.

Didn’t matter. The current Camas girls basketball team was ready to defend, even blocking a shot at the buzzer.

The final score? That didn’t really matter, either. Oh, the youngsters won, but more importantly, the basketball program won.

There were a couple of alumni games at Camas High School on Thursday. Former Camas boys basketball players took the court after the girls game. (That game featured mostly alumni vs. alumni because the current boys team was short-handed this week.)

There have been other alumni games throughout the region, as well. Just a fun way to celebrate the players who wore their school colors before along with the players of today.

It also can be used as a fundraiser. Scott Thompson, the girls basketball coach at Camas, noted that a lot of fundraising had been shut down during the pandemic.

So a donation at the door in order to watch some former stars taking on the current stars seemed like a good idea.

“Why not? It’s Camas. It’s home. You gotta come back home,” said Courtney Clemmer, a 2018 graduate who played college ball at Oregon Tech.

Clemmer said she is impressed with today’s Papermakers and thinks they can make a run at a state title.

“If they make it to that state championship game, I’ll be there,” she said.

The players had some fun with good-natured trash talk. Then the older players tried to pull a fast one with all eight on the court for the final possession. The youngsters just played even tougher defense.

Current Papermaker Reagan Jamison enjoyed her time on the court with some of the older generation.

“It’s pretty cool because these are the players I watched growing up,” Jamison said. “I really looked up to them, so it’s really cool to play against them.”

Alex Glikbarg, a 2017 Camas graduate, went to Washington State and was a practice squad player for the Cougars. He was back in town Thursday to show his support for Camas basketball once again.

“Hopefully raise money for the program and have fun,” he said. “They’ve given a lot to me over the years.”

This is a way to give back, he said.