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Dave Love has a Chip on His Shoulder


- Calgary Herald (2002)

To suggest that Dave Love has a Chip on his shoulder isn't such a bad thing. Oh sure, he once dreamed of running up and down the basketball court with the likes of Larry Bird. But his Chip comes in the form of Chip Engelland, a former pro basketball player in Calgary who has helped spark Love's new business endeavour - The Love of the Game.

Love recently kicked off his new program, teaching players and teams the finer points of basketball. And judging from its infant stages, he's stirring up plenty of hoopla. "I just wanted to give something back and to have something of my own that I could look at theses kids and say I helped them improve," says Love, a master controller for A-Channel. "There's a lot of different reasons, everything from the basketball end to just having my own business."

Love, 27, gives much of the credit for his success to Engelland, a former Duke University basketball star who became an all star for the short lived Calgary 88s of the long since defunct World Basketball League. Love was a ball boy and equipment manager with the 88s in the late 80's and early 90's, and with the Calgary Outlaws, a one-year wonder in 1984 in the National Basketball League. It's was with the 88s where Engelland met Love, a player at Lord Beaverbrook High School who had big dreams, but a little less talent than the other kids eyeing college hoop careers.

"He started working with me on stuff that I'm now teaching these kids. We spent a few hours a couple of times a week working on my shot over the course of the summer. Then after the 88s folded, Chip started his own camps and Lindsay Park and in Chicago," says Love. For four summers, Love helped out Engelland. All Love is trying to do is pick up where Engelland left off in Calgary years ago. His programs include guest lectures at team practices, day clinics and weeklong camps in the summer. While his work touches on all facets of the game, his main focus is shooting.

"In Calgary, kids sort of get taught to keep your butt down and your knees bent, follow through and keep your elbow in and that's really all the we are taugh - myself included - until I met Chip Engelland says Love. "Then when I met Chip, he took me through every part of my body and told me what I should be doing. If you've everr taken a gold lesson, the amount of detail in a basketball shot is akin to a golf swing."

Players are taught how their feet should be positioned, the balance they need, hand position on the ball, hand position with the ball in relation to their body, the path the ball follows and the follow-through. The clinic also touches on the nuances of the game, which Love suggests in typically lacking with Canadian players. "Generally, there are things that get skipped over that I've learned from Chip that, at a high-school age, I thought 'I can't believe I didn't know this'. And I think that's generally teh reason Canadian kids don't excel as much as American kids," Love says. "I think we have all the same athleticism, it's just maybe the detail in coaching doesn't quite get as far."

Love has also had a helping hand through some of his clinics from Travis Stel, a six foot eight graduate of St. Mary's High School. He played college ball at Oregon University and Fresno State. Stel is currently helping with the Lester B. Pearson High School program. While Love has worked with players from Mount Royal College, his main target is players between the ages of 11 and 15. "The young kids really do have a thirst for knowledge and they really want to improve themselves," says Love. "Anyone who can teach them anything, they are happy to listen to. Generally, the younger girls have good heads on their shoulders and tend to excel above and beyond all the boys, so any coaching that comes their way, they are sponges.

And the instruction goes beyond what goes on between the lines. "We're really trying to stress teaching individual and leadership skills that these kids can use on and off the court," he says. "It's not just basketball that we're worried about, we are trying to improve these kids as people as well."