INIS HOOPERS AMES, Iowa

When Cameron Stawhacker was a little kid, he had always watched his older brother go to Inis Grove Park to play basketball. He heard his brother tell his mom countless times that he was going to “hoop” at Inis with his friends. Cameron, being only 5 minutes walking distance from Inis longed to join his brother sometimes but was never invited.

As he got older however, he and his brother's relationship grew and they became closer. While he didn’t go every time, sometimes he was allowed to grow with his broth3r and they would end up hanging out with his friends. AS they played basketball, Cameron got to know his older brother’s friends and slowly developed a relationship with them. They began to accept them and even invited some of their little brothers to play as well. Cameron became friends with their siblings as well. Cameron had just joined the basketball community at Inis that had been established for years.

Now as Cameron is grown up, he still goes to Inis to play basketball with people that he met years ago. He loves to play with people that he knows as well as invite new people to the community and play with them as well. He has invited other friends as well, growing the amount of people that come and play. He looks back and remembers fondly of the times when he first started playing at Inis and wants to share those feelings with others.

Many people take advantage of the open courts at Inis Grove. They have been played on for years by so many different people. One of them is Cameron Strawhacker, who has made great use of the courts as he lives just a quick walk from them.

Cameron takes a three at the top of the key here. His time as a three-point specialist on the baseball team at Ames High was well spent, and some of his abilities can be attributed to the countless shots he put up at Inis.
The hoops at Inis became like a home court for Cameron. “I just knew how the rims bounced, and the backboards weren't fully connected. I understood where to hit them for the ball to go in. When I played with my friends, I had a home-court advantage.
Cameron dribbles through his legs remembering how much better he got through the games he would play at Inis. “Playing at Inis,” he said, “helped me gain confidence in my abilities and refined them to a point where I could translate them to the basketball court.”
Cameron remembers the minutes he got on the state championship team. “While I didn’t play much, I remember being up a lot in one of the playoff games and I was thrown the ball down on the block where I easily made a layup. A highlight of my career.”
Cameron was at the court by himself today, something that can happen frequently on bad weather days. He likes this, though, as he can get shots up undisturbed and practice his craft. He starts like he did every basketball practice from shooting.
Cameron recreates an old basketball picture that was taken of him back when he was on the Ames High Varsity basketball team. As a former state champion, he reminisces about those days and remembers those he played with, some being at Ames High and here at Inis.