The school year is right around the corner and the Oklahoma City Thunder have teamed up with OKC Latina to help teachers with some team building training. 

“I’m having a ball, this is fantastic, and we really appreciate the opportunity to be here and do this,” said Ruby Murphy with Central Oak Elementary School. 

Teachers from OKC Latina were welcomed to the arena with Thunder t-shirts and their names in lights around the court.  

“They’re going to have a lot of fun today, and hopefully get to bring some new fun things back to their classroom to help them get the year started on a good foot,” said Christine Berney, with the OKC Thunder.  

The two groups have partnered together in the past, but this time on the court where the Thunder play.  

“Basketball camp, skills and drills camp for a number of PE teachers and elementary school teachers from around across the OKC metro,” said Berney.  

The purpose of the two-hour camp was to give teachers new team building ideas for the students for the upcoming school year.  

“We just want to give these teachers a great experience being on the Oklahoma City Thunder court, it’s very cool. And we have some fun activities that they can take and bring to their kids,” said Tanner Sikes,” OKC Thunder youth basketball coach.  

The teachers had fun and they broke a sweat.  

“We’re not going to go hard on them, we don’t want to injure anybody today so we’ll take it easy on them, but we just want, overall goal today is to teach them the drills so they can take them to the students,” said Sikes.  

It was important for the Thunder to do the camp now, to show appreciation for the teachers and also give them some excitement before going back to the classroom. 

“These teachers are going to go back to their classrooms and they’re going to start school in another week or two, they’re going to have tons of kids and have to get used to new things,” said Berney.  

The teachers had a blast, seeing some old friends and making some new ones, but they all have some new ideas to take back to school for the school year.  

For information about OKC Latina visit their website www.okclatina.com