"100% surreal:" New Hall of Famer Vince Carter returns home to run his basketball academy for the 27th year

Carter held his basketball academy at the Vince Carter Athletic Center at Mainland High months after his selection to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

  • By Michele Meyers
  • | 9:31 p.m. July 24, 2024
  • Ormond Beach Observer
  • Sports
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NBA legend Vince Carter grabbed the microphone as he walked onto the Mainland High School basketball court on Wednesday, July 17. He proceeded to lead over 130 kids in a few rounds of jumping jacks and a warmup before separating them into age groups on the second day of the Vince Carter Youth Basketball Academy which ran from July 16-19.

“Doing this for 27 years (means) this is just supposed to happen,” he said. “It’s a part of my yearly life and schedule. It’s a part of what I know and what I do. In the beginning, it was that we were putting on a camp to do something good for the city. Now, it’s what we do annually in the community. We want to give these kids the opportunity to accomplish the goals that they want to accomplish or realize the goal that they want or find the lifestyle that they want or find who they want to be.”

The camp was launched in the summer of 1995 by Mainland’s then head basketball coach Charles Brinkerhoff the year Carter led the team to a state championship. Carter then traded his Buc Pride for Tar Heels at the University of North Carolina.

“I knew that as long as I was going to be in coaching that I was going to have a summer camp,” Brinkerhoff said. “It was also part of that Buc Pride thing and it was part of the idea that I wanted to be in that gym and build that vertical team. I called it the Charles Brinkerhoff Basketball Academy starring Vince Carter for the next two years before it officially became his but it was always Vince’s camp.”

In 1998, Carter was a first-round draft pick which began a 22 season career spanning four decades and a bounty of accolades. On April 6, the prestigious recognitions continued during the NCAA Final Four in Phoenix when it was announced that Carter was selected to be part of the Class of 2024 Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

The following month, the Brooklyn Nets surprised him by showing him a video recap of his game-winning 3-pointer while playing for them as the New Jersey Nets against the Toronto Raptors, Carter's previous team. It continued with additional footage of his No. 15 jersey being retired and hung in the rafters alongside former teammate Jason Kidd’s No. 5 jersey.

“I’ll say, because of all the cool things that have happened back-to-back, it has been unbelievable,” Carter said. “The honor of having my jersey retired with the Nets and to go to the Hall of Fame — it’s 100% surreal. It’s been an up and down emotional roller coaster, for the good, of course. I’m just living in the moment.”

Carter said just when he had embraced the news of being inducted into the Hall of Fame and having his jersey retired, he learned he would grace the cover of the video game NBA 2K25 Hall of Fame edition. Fans congratulated him about the cover when he played in the American Century Championship celebrity golf tournament in July.

The honor of having my jersey retired with the Nets and to go to the Hall of Fame — it’s 100% surreal. It’s been an up and down emotional roller coaster, for the good, of course. I’m just living in the moment.
— VINCE CARTER, Class of 2024 Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame

“Now, I’m trying to deal with those (accolades) then I find out I’m on the cover of the video game NBA 2K” he said. “I don’t play video games like that, but I understand how important it is to the young generation being that I do basketball camps. It’s cool to do something like that while I have a college daughter (Kai Carter) who gets to hear ‘Yo, your dad’s on the cover of a video game.’”

Kai worked at her dad’s academy as a camp assistant. Carter prides himself on always running the camp with family, Mainland coaches, former players and campers who have aged out of the academy.

Carter’s mother, Michelle, has been the camp director since 1997 while aunts Errolyn Aaron and Jennifer Cooper ran the education station. Carter’s former seventh grade English teacher, Ann Smith, is his mom’s assistant and handles the administrative details. His wife, Sondi, has a master’s degree in applied exercise physiology and nutrition and lent her expertise as a certified trainer. 

Among the 132 new and returning campers were Carter’s son Vince Jr. and daughter Vayle. Many basketball enthusiasts return yearly to garner some expertise from Carter. North Carolina resident Bryson Green, 13, has been coming for the past three years — a birthday gift from his grandparents.

It was Mainland girls basketball player Shilah-rayn Lord’s first time joining the camp.

“When I look at him (Vince Carter), he gives me light,” she said. “He definitely makes me want to go harder. The key word was vision yesterday. He was telling us to keep pushing. You don’t have to be the best, but you have to prove that you’re the best.”

Camp coach Abby Steele started attending the camp when she was 7 years old and began coaching when she aged out at 18. Now 30, Steele recently made the decision to go back to school. She has applied to 14 different physician assistant programs throughout the United States. Whether she returns to coach at the Carter's academy depends on which program she chooses and the future academy schedules.

“I think they have become a second family,” she said. “I don’t ever remember a summer without them and without this camp. Education-wise, career-wise and character-wise, to say the least, I wouldn’t be who I am today or where I am today without this camp.” 

It was Brinkerhoff’s first year back in the fold at the camp. He was one of the academy’s basketball skills coaches along with Mainland head basketball coach Joe Giddens, Mainland assistant coach Jeff Harris and former Mainland basketball players Cornelius James and Yavis Perry.

Brinkerhoff was Carter’s American history teacher during his tenure at Mainland. He was the assistant basketball coach under Dick Toth during Carter’s freshman year and the head coach through his senior year. He retired Carter’s, Giddens’ and Antoine “T.T.” Toliver’s jerseys immediately after each of them graduated from Mainland. All three were part of the 1995 championship team with Giddens and Toliver returning to take the state championship again in 1996.

Brinkerhoff said it was wonderful that the Nets retired Carter’s jersey.

“I think Vince had some of his greatest years with the Nets,” he said. “Had the chemistry been a little different, I think they might have been able to make some runs at the championship. Jason Kidd was so complimentary when Vince was selected for the Hall of Fame. As a teammate, he really supported what Vince did.”

Carter said “Coach Brink” set the baseline for he and Giddens when they were young.

“We all understand the common goal and that’s to help develop these kids —it’s not about anything else,” he said. “If you teach these kids how to be good kids, how to go about getting their business and working hard instead of wanting a handout, they come back with ‘I don’t want a handout, let me do it myself.’ It’s going to be tough, but if you don’t know how to do it, it can go the other way.”

The Hall of Fame induction ceremony will be held at Springfield Symphony Hall in Springfield, Massachusetts, on Oct. 13.

 

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