A Cal State Long Beach women’s basketball player is hosting a free basketball camp for first- through sixth-grade girls at a Memorial Heights gym on Saturday, July 20.
Lauren Cummings, a sophomore guard majoring in business management, will run the free camp titled Girls Be Ballers 2 in the Salvation Army Gym at 3000 Long Beach Boulevard. She’ll get help from several teammates from the women’s basketball team.
A session for first- through third-graders will take place from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday and a fourth- through sixth-grade session will run from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. the same day.
Each camper will receive a t-shirt and compete for prizes and awards.
“I’m trying to give back and create opportunities for other people and show them that you can go far playing just a game,” Cummings said.
Space is limited to 40 girls per session and early registration is encouraged. Registration information can be found here.
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Cummings ran a free basketball camp in her hometown of Billings, Montana in early June and plans to host another free camp in Montana in late August.
“I’ve just taken little things from all the camps that I loved and I just put them all into one camp,” she said.
Cummings has been able to offer the camps free of charge by raising money through name, image and likeness deals now allowed for college student-athletes.
One of her first NIL deals was with a transportation company in Montana that shipped her 2006 Ford Ranger truck out to Long Beach.
She started her nonprofit Lauren Cummings Elite Basketball in the fall of her senior year in high school with the goal of using NIL money to offer free youth sports lessons.
She said her first free youth camp raised over $1,300, which was used to create scholarships for children to play youth basketball.
“I just saw it’s a good opportunity especially with these companies to show that I’m not profiting and I’m just sharing and giving back to the community,” Cummings said.
This year, Cummings is going to participate in a committee to help other CSULB student-athletes land NIL deals.
“It’s a cool opportunity for me to get to know people and just share my knowledge of [NIL],” she said. “It’s a confusing process, but once you get the hang of it it gets a lot easier.”
The 5-foot-11 guard was an All-State recruit out of Montana and a member of the Under Armour 17U National Championship Team in 2022. She was also the first female to play quarterback at an AA school in Montana and the first female to play American Legion Baseball in Montana.
Cummings, who averaged 17.2 points, 9.2 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game during her senior season, chose to join Long Beach State as the first recruit signed by head coach Amy Wright.
“I just got here and it seemed like I was supposed to be here,” Cummings said about her first visit to the CSULB campus.