How a local man’s love for basketball is helping kids be successful

RIGBY — Sean McDonald’s favorite pastime is playing basketball, and he’s helping others who love it to be successful at playing it.

Jump Start Sports Academy sits right off U.S. Highway 20 at exit 325 north of Rigby. Young athletes across eastern Idaho meet here five days a week for basketball training courses. Each class lasts about an hour.

Coaches divide the kids into age groups and work with them collectively and individually to teach them different aspects of the game.

“Dribbling, footwork and the rules of the game are the first part (of the class),” McDonald tells EastIdahoNews.com. “The main thing is ball-handling skills.”

Many students have benefitted from participating in the academy. Since opening its doors two years ago, McDonald says many students have benefitted from participating and it’s rewarding to see their progress.

“We have a kid who didn’t make the 7th-grade team last year and then turned into a starter this year for the 8th-grade team and is one of their best players,” McDonald says. “We can’t take all the credit for that but we complemented his efforts.”

As the academy reaches its two-year anniversary this month, McDonald says he’s pleased with the response. With more than 130 students enrolled, the academy continues to grow and an expansion project is already underway.

The inception

The inspiration for Jump Start Sports Academy began several years ago. McDonald was involved in his kids’ basketball teams as a volunteer and he noticed a recurring trend among the players.

“They struggled with fundamentals,” he says.

Expensive camps from out of state was one option available for kids who wanted to improve, but McDonald wasn’t satisfied and wanted to offer something different.

“If kids want to pay to drink out of a firehose — just get as much as you can in a two-day period — I just haven’t seen the results that you want with that type of model. It just doesn’t work,” he says.

McDonald and his coaching staff now provide focused training to kids between 4 and 18 for $40 a month. Each coach at Jump Start is a college athlete.

Chapman Tagg is the head coach for the Rexburg United Vikings, a basketball team made up of Brigham Young University-Idaho students who compete with surrounding junior colleges and amateur teams. He started working as a coach at Jump Start about a year ago while attending school and he says McDonald’s passion for the sport is contagious and it’s making a difference in the lives of the kids.

“To see the younger generation get excited about playing basketball is awesome and it all stems from the top,” Tagg says.

Future growth

McDonald considers the academy a community project and he says he’s never taken a dime for it. He’s been saving funds for future expansions, which began last fall. Ground was broken on a 7,200-square-foot building that will soon house a full-size court with bleachers and nearly triple the size of their current space

“It’s going to be larger than a high school court. A high school court is 84 feet long. This one will be 94 feet like an NBA court. We even purchased a floor that’s a former NBA G-league court, the Santa Cruz Warriors old floor,” he says.

Several disruptions in construction have delayed the project a bit, but McDonald is hoping it will be complete by the end of the summer.

Once it is complete, McDonald wants to start a league to give kids in the class an incentive.

“We have to have some kind of league to complement what’s going on in the classroom,” he says. “You really need to play the game as you’re learning about it.”

Jump Start Sports Academy is at 4141 E. 645 N. in Rigby. Visit the website or Facebook page to learn more. You can also call (208) 313-1029.