NBA champion Bruce Bowen teaching more than just sports at Edison High basketball camp

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Before coming home for his free basketball camp at Edison High - his alma mater - Bruce Bowen traded the basketball court for center court.

With pinpoint passing and tenacious defense, the kids showed no mercy on the final day of the Bruce Bowen Basketball Camp.

"Looked like they were cutting your legs out. I thought every shot," he said. "Every shot there was something was going on there. No that's part of being old Dale, trying to sell a call."

Of course, kids were quick to help the three-time NBA champion back on his feet. When Bowen retired from the San Antonio Spurs in 2009, he became an NBA ambassador.

Prior to coming home to the Valley, he represented the league on the center court grass at Wimbledon. To be there, in that element, it's royalty there.

Bowen also brought his sons Ojani and Ozmel to France where he once played.

"If there is anything that I always hold dear and true to France, it's the baked goods," he said. "I mean the croissants, the pan au chocolat."

The Evreux Team tweeted an old video of Bruce with hair.

"I was fit," he said. "I was a little swole."

The world travel, NBA and now ESPN careers were made possible because of the habits Bowen developed inside the Edison gym. His camp has always been free so he could teach life lessons.

"I think one of the biggest issues we have as a society is there is no accountability in the household, so if these kids can come here and get some accountability I think that will help them along the way," he said.

But if the games got close, Bowen would remind the campers he used to be the NBA's top defensive stopper.