The most famous proving ground for rising basketball talent used to be a Pennsylvania blacktop. A new podcast explores Five-Star Basketball Camp’s history and legacy.
Between 1966 and 2008, hundreds of superstars and Hall of Famers passed through the Five-Star Basketball Camp. It’s where Michael Jordan — he went by Mike at the time — was first discovered. Where both Patrick Ewing and Kevin Durant leveled up. Where coaches like John Calipari and Rick Pitino endured hours in the summer heat to teach rising generations of talent.
Though the camp as we knew it was marginalized more than a decade ago, the legend has endured: Five-Star founder Howard Garfinkel will receive a posthumous Basketball Hall of Fame induction this weekend.
Now, UNINTERRUPTED and RTG Features have teamed up to produce a six-part podcast narrated by Tate Frazier and detailing the rise and fall of Five-Star, Garfinkel’s influence, and the hundreds of big names to pass through the camps over the years.
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The podcast will make generous use of the camp’s elite alumni list. Listeners will hear from Roy Williams, Mike Krzyzewski, Metta World Peace, Grant Hill, Dick Vitale, God Shammgod, and more about the camp’s impact on the growth of the game, as well as Howard Garfinkel’s titanic status in the basketball world.
As Frazier says at the beginning of the podcast, there used to be one central proving ground for the best high school players in the country, and it came at the Five-Star Basketball Camp in Honesdale, Pennsylvania. Five-Star’s heyday came before the AAU circuit became what it is today and way before player mixtapes were available on YouTube.
If you wanted to face the best, you went to Five-Star.
The release date for “The World of Five-Star” is still TBD, but a teaser trailer is available:
Five-Star apparel is also available for purchase via UNINTERRUPTED and SLAM. Click here to check out the full collection of camp-branded shirts and shorts.
