For more than 10 years, The Ohm Court has been a fixture in the Twin Towns for children of all ages with a love for basketball. The court received a fitting sendoff this past month as Arly Ohm held a youth basketball camp for grades 2-8.
It was the final time Breckenridge players were able to have lessons of the game instilled in them before the Ohm family makes their move to Perham.
“The Ohm Court is pretty well known in Wahp and Breck. There’s kids there every day so that’s pretty awesome,” Ohm said. “I’m just glad kids can come. It’s more than basketball to us, it’s a safe place for kids to hang out. That’s always been important to us.”
The Coach ‘Em-Up Skills and Development Camp idea came about when multiple parents approached Ohm to do some one-on-one lessons with their children before he heads to his next venture. As the number grew, the two-time section champion coach had to set a cap for the number of campers allowed at 45.
“We could have had way more. It wasn’t about money for us, it was about more like teaching the game,” Ohm said. “I’ve traveled all over the United States to watch practices, so I took their stuff and brought it back to Breckenridge.”
The camp featured three sessions a day throughout June with 15 campers getting coached up at a time. Ohm was joined by his son, Alex, who spent two years on the Cowboy varsity squad and will play for the Yellowjackets as a junior next year. Arly said he doesn’t know if he’ll coach Alex yet and said he’d be happy to if he is asked to join the staff.
“They were things I taught Adam and Alex throughout their lives that they can now take to the gym or their own court on their own,” Ohm said. “We wanted it to be more of a teaching camp. Our goal was to teach kids things they could do on their own.”
Every member of the Ohm family is beginning a new chapter at a different school. Arly will be teaching elementary physical education, his wife Amy is going to be a reading literacy coach that instructs educators on how to teach reading and Adam heads to college at Tennessee Tech.
“I always call it the windshield versus rear-view mirror analogy: You can look through the windshield which is bigger and you’re always looking forward or you can look back in the mirror which is tinier but then you’re looking back,” Arly said. “We’ve had some awesome things here, but it’s time to keep moving forward I guess. Breckenridge will always be a special place to us.”
