Beckley basketball camp helps students learn to overcome adversity with ‘Championship Mentality’
By Matthew Young, RealWV
BECKLEY, W.Va. – “Our main focus is the fundamentals of shooting, dribbling, and passing the basketball, but we also bring a different aspect and a different light to it.”
That’s what Coach Damien Tunstalle told RealWV this week about the YMCA of Southern West Virginia’s “Championship Mentality Skills and Fundamentals” basketball camp. For nearly two weeks this month, students between grades three and eight gathered at the state-of-the-art YMCA facility in Beckley to work with both Tunstalle, and Coach Cam Shannon, to develop these fundamental skills of the game.
But it was more than just basketball that Tunstalle and Shannon were helping teach their players.
“We try to teach them the skills of basketball through life lessons,” Tunstalle said. “We also try to implement the ‘manners’ of things – the ‘Yes, Sirs’,’ and the ‘No, Sirs’’ into it. And we use stories from our own lives to tell the kids how we use basketball to overcome adversities that we face.”
“Basketball is one of those things that literally carried us from the elementary level, all the way up to the college level for myself and Coach Shannon,” Tunstalle added. “Without basketball – and I think he (Shannon) would agree – I don’t think we’d be where we are today.”
Tunstalle scored an average of 16.3 points-per-game during his senior season at Concord University, and finished his playing career as the university’s 33rd highest all-time scorer. Where he is now is Park Middle School in Beckley, where he serves as Head Basketball Coach. Now in his third season, Tunstalle succeeded Shannon – his now camp-coaching partner – in the role.
“My first year (at Park), Coach Shannon was the head coach and I was the assistant,” Tunstalle explained. “Coach Shannon took a step back because of his family commitments, and now he runs and coaches the FCA – Fellowship of Christian Athletes.”
Shannon, himself a graduate of Woodrow Wilson High School and former member of the Concord University basketball team, was Raleigh County’s 2022 ‘Teacher of the Year’ while serving as Park Middle’s Head Basketball Coach.
“The message that we want to send the kids is the ‘Championship Mentality,’ Shannon said. “That’s the name that Coach Tunstalle came up with, and I really love the name. We’re trying to instill that.”
“To make a long story short, that mentality is this: whatever you decide to do – it doesn’t have to be basketball – whatever you put your mind to do, you go in with the mindset of a champion and give it your all. If you want to be successful at it, you have to put the time in and practice it.”
“The main focus of this camp, first we want to teach them basketball, but we’re trying to instill in these children that when they make a decision about what they want to do, to go all in and give it their all,” Shannon added. “Whatever happens, happens – but make sure you come in with the mindset of a champion.”
Shannon is also involved in the FCA’s new basketball league – the first of its kind in the Mountain State.
“We just started this past Saturday, and it was a great turnout,” Shannon said. “Some of the kids that are here also signed up for the FCA league, so we get to work with them a lot.”
While registration for the YMCA’s “Championship Mentality” basketball camp and the new FCA basketball league are now closed for 2025, both programs will be open for students again next summer. The YMCA camp will be open to children throughout southern West Virginia, while the FCA league will be open for residents of Raleigh, Nicholas and Fayette Counties.
For more information about the programs available through the YMCA of Southern West Virginia, visit ymcaswv.com. To learn more about the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and the programs that they offer, visit fcawv.org.
