FAIRFIELD — For the second consecutive summer, Fairfield High School welcomed the Montana State women's basketball team for a daylong camp to help the next generation of players.
"I feel like nobody really thinks about how much these camps really mean to us," incoming Fairfield High School junior Gretta Wilson said during Tuesday's camp. "When they take the time to come out here and just talk to us and be super personable, it just makes your day and, yeah, you think of it for the rest of your life."
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As Wilson said, there's a big impact the Bobcats bring while conducting a camp in a small town. A majority of the players were in attendance, including Saco's Teagan Erickson and teammate Addison Harris.
Both said they were very happy to be back in Fairfield for another year.
"A lot of small-town kids, a lot of Class C kids, and the area is just familiar to me," Erickson said. "There's not a lot of recognition in our area and just in small schools in general. So just to get to these camps and be able to pour into these kids and help them expand their game and help them get noticed, it just means a lot because I was there once too."
"It's so cute, and I know I was in exactly the same place when I was their age going to all the college camps that I did," Harris said. "To be able to have the roles reversed, and to be in the shoes of the people I admired, I think that's like really cool. The whole thing is just a highlight of my summer."
The camp is put on by Pat Goldhahn and the Bobcat Collective — which is the name, image and likeness organization serving MSU student-athletes.
"I've got a couple NIL deals with a couple of the basketball players, one of the volleyball players," Goldhahn said. "Part of their deal is to come up and work a camp. So we chose to bring it to Fairfield. The last two days with volleyball and basketball we're sitting at about 185 athletes."
Like Goldhahn explained, the MSU women's basketball team was not the only one to run a camp in Fairfield this week. On Monday, the volleyball team had one as well.
Goldhahn said a handful of the campers attended both, including Wilson, who said she got a lot out of volleyball's clinic.
"We did a lot of drills so there was a lot of like, oh, that's my bad. But, you know, you have teammates and they pick you right back up, so it's amazing," Wilson said. "We watched them scrimmage afterwards and it was so much fun. They were just super encouraging to each other and it's a really good example of what it should be at your team."
