Jermaine Camacho-Small is a lean 6’7” center on Hamilton High School’s basketball team. With that type of heighth, he has a great opportunity to play college basketball next year, and possibly follow in his father’s footsteps by playing professional basketball.
While Camacho-Small has the genetics to play basketball at a high level, it is the academics that is making the difference. Struggles in the classroom nearly derailed the young athlete, but the desire to play sports inspired him to make a major turnaround, after his athletic career nearly ended during his sophomore year because he was academically ineligible.
“He was well below a 2.0 (grade point average),” said Sterling Brown, head JV coach and assistant varsity coach. “He wanted to come in and play, (but) I wouldn’t let him. I wouldn’t let him play JV, so he had to play (on the) frosh/soph (team). And he hasn’t had any academic troubles ever since. He put in the work academically. His GPA is 2.8 now, and understand (that’s up from) a 1.2. He’s really worked hard.”
“He was forced to take it serious,” Brown continued. “He realized that we weren’t going to back him up spending half the time being eligible and then not being eligible. He loves basketball, so he realized our expectations mixed in with what he had to do. He made the decision, and he made the correct decision.”
Since making the ‘correct decision,’ Camacho-Small has contributed to a Division II City Section championship team from last year, and now he is one of the leaders of a team that is playing perrennial powerhouse Crenshaw High School for the Division I City Section championship.
Basketball did not always come easy for Camacho-Small, but he was motivated to excel at the sport.
“I watched my dad play, when I was little, and I always wanted to be like him,” said Camacho-Small, who played youth basketball at Rancho Cienega Park and Baldwin Hill Park. And even though he was always a highly valued player, he had to go through many growing pains.
“When you’re the tallest player, you’re always picked first,” Camacho-Small said. “But I wasn’t all that good. My game didn’t start developing until middle school, like eighth grade, coming into high school.”
With the help of his father, who played basketball at Iona College in New York City and professionally overseas, Camacho-Small started to become a good player.
“I listened to everything he said, because I knew all the goals that he achieved,” Camacho-Small said. “I wanted to do that too.”
After playing on the frosh/soph team as a freshman, Camacho-Small was ready to move up to the JV team as a sophomore. But his grades held him back.
“I wasn’t a bad kid, I just wasn’t doing homework or assignments,” Camacho-Small said. “That dropped my grades.”
After being allowed to rejoin the team, Camacho-Small started to put school before hanging out with his friends, and he dedicated more time to homework and studying. That made a huge difference, and allowed him to restart his promising basketball career.
After coming off the bench as a junior on the varsity team, Camacho-Small is ready to seize the moment as a senior.
“I saw the seniors from my junior year, and all the work they did,” Camacho-Small said. “We won the championship my junior year, and I want to do the same thing (as a senior). Just following them. It makes me work harder; just so that I can brag to the other class that I did the same thing that you did.”
Camacho-Small knows this year is much different from last year. Not only has Hamilton moved up from Division II to Division I, but the young center has much greater responsibilities on this year’s team.
“This year there is way more pressure,” Camacho-Small. “Last year the expectations for me weren’t very high, because I was a junior. But now that I’m a senior, I have to do stuff that I really didn’t know how to do when we first started the season. Like getting everybody involved. If the team is falling apart, that’s my fault.”
Camacho-Small’s heighth and quickness are two of his main assets.
“For a guy his size, who is still getting used to his body, his feet are ridiculous,” Brown said. “He can get and move anywhere. I’ve seen him shut down point guards and then go and battle with centers. He just now really started understanding what it takes to work. Between academic work and basketball, his potential is very great.”
For most of this season, Camacho-Small averaged about six points and six rebounds per game. But as Hamilton prepared for their championship run, he has stepped his game up. Brown said that for about the past month, he’s been averaging about 10 points and 10 rebounds per game. Even his mother has noticed the difference.
“Sometimes, I surprise my parents with what I’m doing,” Camacho-Small said. “My mom said that I was a totally different player from the beginning of the season. She said that my game has changed.”
Even with his great improvements, and a city championship game coming up Camacho-Small has one more feat to reach before he’s finished with high school. Up until this point he has not been able to beat his father, who stands at 6’9”, in a game of one-on-one.
“Right now, he’s going to win,” Camacho-Small said of his dad. “He’s been winning ever since I was little, but I’ve been getting close.”
The last time the two played a couple of months ago, father beat the son 13-11, which was the closest game that they have had. Before Camacho-Small goes off to play college basketball, he’d like to finally settle that score.
