LEITCHFIELD -- Youngsters looking to improve their basketball skills will have the opportunity to do so at the hands of a couple of former Grayson County High School standouts.

Beginning Monday, July 14 and running through the beginning of the new school year, Chris Gaither and Josh Basham will be conducting individual improvement sessions for small groups of players at the high school gym.

Instruction in the fundamentals of the game will be given in one-hour increments beginning at 8 a.m. and running through 1 or 2 in the afternoon, depending on participation. Each group will be limited to four to six players.

"We don't want this to be like a camp, with 20 or 30 kids at a time," Gaither said. "We want it to be individual, one-on-one instruction."

Participants can enroll in as many of the one-hour sessions as they like, but Gaither wants the participants to come to at least two sessions in a week.

The sessions are for both boys and girls in grades one through nine. Gaither said arrangements could be made for groups of players to go through the sessions together if they so desire. Groups can be all boys, all girls or a mixture of boys and girls.

Gaither, who recently transferred from Temple University to Georgetown University here in Kentucky, said he had thought about doing this last summer but had not gotten it together.

This year, he had to take some summer classes at Georgetown to be prepared for the upcoming school year, but when he finished he said Basham persuaded him to go ahead with the instruction sessions.

Gaither said the participants will be put through ball handling and shooting drills, will work on passing and rebounding as well as some defensive skills.

"Some of the drills are things that I have picked up over the years, but many are things I did as a kid growing up," he said.

Gaither confesses most of the drills he did as a youngster he learned from studying Pete Maravich, the player he tried most to emulate.

Gaither said he may have other visitors to the sessions, though he is not sure of exactly who they will be. All players will be receiving t-shirts for their participation.

For more information, including the cost of the sessions, contact Gaither at 287-1966, or Basham at 259-1011.