All your favorite teams and sources in one place

Build your feed

Your Teams.
All Sources.

Build your feed

© 2024 BVM Sports. Best Version Media, LLC.

No results found.
Kentucky basketball legend VanHoose helps young players by launching training school
Kentucky’s 1998 Mr. Basketball J.R. VanHoose is helping to grow the next group of hardwood big men through his new venture, the J.R. VanHoose Post Player School. This photo shows VanHoose during his first day of the school teaching kids the art of post play. (Courtesy: Jonathan VanHoose)

Kentucky basketball legend VanHoose helps young players by launching training school

PAINTSVILLE, Ky. (BVM) — While youth basketball coaches and players wait to reunite on the court amid the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the best players in Kentucky high school basketball history has returned to his roots.

Jonathan VanHoose, known better by his playing name of J.R., is recognized throughout the state for his achievements on the hardwood. Winner of the 1998 Kentucky Mr. Basketball, VanHoose had a hall of fame career for the Paintsville Tigers during his playing days, amassing 3,095 points, 2,069 rebounds and more than 500 blocks — one of a handful of players to accomplish the feat.

VanHoose also helped Paintsville win the 1996 state title and earn a runner-up finish in 1998 when he was named a Parade All-American. He moved on to Marshall University where he finished in the top five in school history in both points and rebounds en route to a school hall of fame membership.

Now a teacher and assistant boys basketball coach at Johnson Central High School where he has been for the past 17 years, VanHoose wanted to do more to help teach the younger players who looked to follow in his footsteps. After being approached by a number of people in the community who knew the former player’s on-court reputation, VanHoose and his wife decided to create something for interested players. On March 11, VanHoose launched his newest venture, The J.R. VanHoose Post Player School, where he looked to train young basketball players in the art of making plays near the rim.

J.R. VanHoose, one of the most decorated high school basketball players in state’s history, once dominated the hardwood for the Paintsville Tigers in the ‘90s. During his time with the Tigers, VanHoose helped them to two state championships, winning one, and
was also named the 1998 Mr. Basketball as well as a Parade All-American. (Courtesy: Jonathan VanHoose)

“I thought it was a pretty good time to start trying to give back a little bit more than I had before,” VanHoose said. “I just figured I have all this knowledge so why not try to pass it on and help some kids out and maybe see if some of them could develop and do some great things.”

VanHoose said he likes to work in smaller groups so he can have some individual teaching time with each kid, so for his hour-long sessions he strives to have groups of three to four kids. Each training session is an hour long and costs participants $30 per session.

During the session, VanHoose will teach players everything from shot mechanics, post and counter post moves and correct footwork. VanHoose wants his camp to help bring back an art the modern game has lost in recent years.

“If you look at the sport of basketball today, especially the NBA, all you really see is a lot of 3-point shooting,” VanHoose said. “The post game is pretty much non-existent. If you’re good and you’re skilled around the basket and you can expand your game to 15 feet or even the 3-point line, you can become a pretty dangerous player.”

The sessions are aimed at middle school and high school aged children, between 13 and 18 years old because it’s hard to teach post moves to younger children who may not grow to be big on the court, according to VanHoose.

“What my wife and I had decided with some of these skills is it’s going to be hard to teach a 10-year-old certain post moves because they might not be very tall and they might not grow up much by the time they get into high school,” VanHoose said.

After just one day of work teaching a group of 10 players in the Wayland High School gym, reality struck for VanHoose as the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the country, closing all the gyms in its wake. VanHoose quickly announced that he would temporarily close his camps.

“I felt really good about it,” VanHoose said. “It was a great day and it was really starting to build interest and before you knew it the virus had broken out. So what started out pretty promising had got shut down pretty quickly. It was disappointing, but there was really nothing for me to gain out of it. It was all about the kids and that’s who you hate it for.”

As quick as he had started his venture, it seemed to be over — until he got an idea.

The hardwood legend and his wife took his game outside to the old hoop in his parents’ driveway, only three houses down from his own home, where he once would spend hours honing his craft, taking shots from under the bucket, grabbing rebounds and mimicking his favorite post player, Kevin McHale. Using a phone and a tripod, the VanHooses recorded a short video showing players how to execute the Mikan drill on their own, with proper footwork and technique, and posted it to the school’s social media pages. The Post Player School was now going virtual.

“(I just wanted to teach) simple things kids could do to work on their footwork, get outside a little bit and try to keep doing some of the post work stuff we were doing,” VanHoose said. “I just wanted to give the kids something else to work on while in this quarantine.”

Within two days of posting the video to his school’s Twitter page, it had nearly 2,000 views — this with less than 100 followers of the page so far. Slowly, VanHoose is building a small reputation through his social media accounts with over 700 people liking the school’s Facebook page with a number of his posts and videos being shared. VanHoose was pleasantly surprised by the growing attention the videos have brought.

“After we got done I was like, ‘that didn’t take as long as I thought,’ and I told (my wife) I bet nobody watches this,” VanHoose said. “To see it get some attention, that makes me feel good and it lets me know that people are interested in what I’m trying to do.”

VanHoose said he will try to continue to do virtual skills lessons with a video per week while the quarantine continues. He also said this would probably be used in the future as well to help those kids who can’t come to the sessions. In the end, VanHoose just wants to help kids get better at their game.

“This is something that I think I can help the kids with. That’s the simple answer,” VanHoose said. “The post stuff gets left out. … We want the kids to be able to get something out of it.”

As the sports world remains in flux, VanHoose will continue to do what he has always done best — shoot the basketball and teach others, even if it now has to be done through a screen.