Seattle Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett took aim at the reigning NBA Most Valuable Player for overcharging young basketball players (ages 9-16) to participate in “The Warriors Overnight Camp Featuring Stephen Curry.”
The 30-year-old Pro Bowl MVP spends a good deal of his offseason living on Oahu and giving back to his community. Bennett hosts his fourth-annual free football camp this weekend.
“I see a lot of different athletes come through Hawaii whether it’s Steph Curry or whoever it is,” Bennett quipped. “They all come here and it makes me mad because I live in this community and I understand this community — that there’s so many kids who can’t afford to pay such a high amount of money.”
For the hefty sum of $2,500 the overnight campers enjoy the presence of Stephen Curry for three days during the 4-day session, while the 28-year-old superstar conducts lectures, interacts with campers, demonstrates his personal workout routine, and imbues the participants with other valuable skills.
According to the camp’s official website participants will receive, among other treasures, an autograph & photo session with Curry. Each camper, moreover, gets a reversible Stephen Curry camp jersey, camp t-shirt, headband, and certificate.
Bennett, on the other hand, thinks players make enough money in their sport that they should offer their time free as a thank you to the communities that afforded them the opportunities to play at the professional level.
“In my mind, it’s like, how much money do you need before you start giving back for free? And I think a lot of athletes should start focusing on that,” Bennett told KHON2.
“If you do have a camp and you charge money for it, you need to make sure that money that you take from this community, you give back to the kids that are paying for the camp,” the seven-year veteran out of Texas A&M added. “These are the kids that live here. When you leave Hawaii and you go back to wherever you’re at, or you come here and you go back from this vacation you leave with a piece of paradise, but these people still live here every day.”
The Golden State Warriors flashy guard is in the last year of a four-year contract that pays him about $11 million per year. Bennett earns about $7 million a year and becomes a free agent in 2018.
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