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You could be forgiven for expecting Ron Palmer to have slowed down a bit\u2014after all, the Long Beach legend has been coaching basketball for forty years now. <\/span>Palmer spent 25 years with Poly (netting a staggering 8 CIF titles in that time), and is currently coaching in Virginia, where his team is performing well.<\/p>\nBut when I walked into the Poly gym (which was renamed the Palmer Pavilion in his honor a few years ago) to hear more about the camp he’s hosting in Long Beach this August, Palmer was fact-checking the Moore League title banners hanging on the walls. <\/span>“Didn’t we win the title in ’78?” he asked longtime assistant Erroll Parker (who remains with Poly as an assistant and who’s helping to put on Palmer’s camp this summer). <\/span><\/p>\n “You know,” Palmer says, surveying his old court. <\/span>“I’ve been in a lot of high school gyms\u2014and there aren’t any other ones with as many banners hanging as this one.” <\/span>Of course, Poly has Palmer himself to thank for a number of those\u2014in 25 years of coaching, Palmer’s ‘Rabbits won the league title 20 times, and he compiled a record of 601-150 (80% wins), while bringing home the 8 CIF titles (and appearing in several more, including a few losses to the Artesia team that later forfeited their wins) and winning National Coach of the Year in 1984.<\/p>\n If you’re interested in benefiting from Palmer’s tutelage, or you know a student who is, you can contact Erroll Parker at 562.432.8713 to register, or email him at errollparker@yahoo.com<\/a>. You can find more info at <\/span>this link<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n Make sure you get in touch early, demand is sure to be high\u2014of course, at his pace Palmer’s not likely to stop coaching any time soon. <\/span>“At some point I’ll stop,” he says with a smile. <\/span>“When my wife says, ‘Enough is enough.’ <\/span>But right now, it’s something I’ve been doing for 40 years\u2014and I still love it.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We caught up with Palmer to talk about his long, storied career as well as his upcoming basketball camp he’s putting on in the Pyramid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-3639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3639\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3639"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=3639"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/i304.photobucket.com\/albums\/nn191\/LBPOSTphotos\/Picture2-4.jpg\")
Now, in an effort to give back to the Long Beach community he helped to build for two and a half decades, Palmer is returning to the Beach to help teach the youth once more. <\/span>The Ron Palmer Elite Summer Basketball Camp will be hosted at the Long Beach State Gold Mine from August 12-16, and is open to Middle School-aged players\u2014participants will receive a camp shirt, and can stay in the adult-supervised Long Beach State dorms. <\/span>Uniquely, in addition to rigorous athletic instruction from Palmer, they’ll spend a little time each day in Math and Language Arts classes. <\/span>“Basketball, yes, come and play,” says Palmer. <\/span>“But we want to give them something else to take away that will benefit them throughout the year.”<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/i304.photobucket.com\/albums\/nn191\/LBPOSTphotos\/coaches3samp.jpg\")
<\/p>\n