LAST Friday on “Sports For All,” I had IMG Academy Associate Director Dan Barto on the program. I saw Dan in the Netflix documentary “One in a Billion” which is about a young Indian basketball player, Satnam Singh, the first fully homegrown Indian to be drafted in the National Basketball Association (NBA).
Singh was drafted by the Dallas Mavericks in the second round at No. 52. Unfortunately, he never played a single minute in the league as he played for two years in the NBA G League for the Texas Legends.
A little about IMG Academy, according to their website, imgacademy.com, “IMG Academy is the world’s most prestigious sports, performance and educational institution. Established in 1978 with a pioneering concept known as the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy, IMG Academy has since grown to become a global phenomenon.
With our world-renowned boarding school and noted sports camps, IMG continues to set the standard for total academic, athletic and personal development in youth student-athletes.
The 600-acre Bradenton (Florida) campus annually attract hundreds of teams, groups and events for training and competition. Pro, Olympic and collegiate athletes leverage cutting-edge sport science to gain a greater edge on the competition.
Adult athletes turn back the clock with sport instruction that hones their game, then unwind in a setting of contemporary luxury in the Legacy Hotel at IMG Academy. Corporate professionals become better leaders, teammates and communicators with our dynamic retreats and IMG Institute programming.
As we continue to grow campus and refine our developmental methodology, our goal remains steadfast: Help the most dedicated and passionate maximize their inherent potential.”
IMG Academy is a boarding school attended by as many as 1,300 high-school students from more than 70 countries. Notable teams that train at the academy include the Major League Soccer’s Atlanta United, National Football League’s Carolina Panthers and San Francisco 49ers.
Professional athletes who’ve trained at IMG include the Memphis Grizzlies’ Ja Morant, the New England Patriots’ Cam Newton, professional tennis player Kei Nishikori, and the Seattle Seahawks’ Russell Wilson.
We asked Barto a plethora of questions from the evolution of parents’ attitude and behavior in dealing with coaches and trainers about their child or children, to friendships and relationships established with kids Dan has coached who call or text for advice, to whether Kobe Bryant’s and Michael Jordan’s work ethic which has yielded iconic results—is something he’d advise kids as young as nine—emulate, to finally Satnam Singh’s journey and Japanese international Shohei Otani’s two way play, pitching and hitting in baseball.
(To find out what he had to say about them, go to Sports For All PH on Facebook.)
This coming weekend, my guest will be Washington Wizards executive Ryo Shinkawa.
Shinkawa is the Marketing Manager of the Washington Wizards organization and a member of the Wizards’ global digital media team.