65 Years of the Red Auerbach Basketball School
Every summer for more than 65 years, a group of young men has shown up somewhere in New England to spend a week learning basketball the Auerbach way. The places have changed. The beds have changed. The courts have certainly changed. The idea has not. This is the story of how we got from a summer camp with cabins and outdoor hard-top courts to a college campus in central Massachusetts, and why we are still doing it.
1960: Red, Jerry Volk, and Camp Milbrook
The Auerbach School started in 1960 when Jerry Volk, the owner of a summer camp for boys and girls, sat down with Red Auerbach to look for more ways of using his camp facilities. The two of them developed an immediate bond, and together they created the Red Auerbach Basketball School and the Celtics Rookie Camp.
The place was Camp Milbrook, and it was a camp in the truest sense. All coaches, campers and Celtics players slept in cabins, ate in the mess hall and played on hard-top outdoor courts. There was nothing fancy about it. There didn't need to be. The Celtics were there, Red was there, and boys who loved the game came to play.
That was it for 20 years.
1982: Steve Curley and the move to Brandeis
By the early 1980s, it was getting harder to keep everyone safe and happy with the location and the facilities. Red and Steve Curley, a long-time staff member who had been part of the school since 1960, talked over opportunities to upgrade.
In 1982, Steve took over as School Director and became Red's partner, and the program moved to Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. Cabins were now dormitories. The mess hall was now a dining hall. The hard courts became six indoor courts. As the history on our site puts it:
It was a step up for sure!
Steve brought a coach's eye to the job. He had spent 20 years as a teacher and coach in the public and private sector, and would go on to spend another 20 as an executive in the sporting goods industry. Under his direction, the school moved from cabins to dormitories, from hard courts to college gyms, from mess hall to dining room, and from mostly local campers to international attendance and recognition. What did not change was his philosophy.
Moving around, always trying to improve
We have moved around a bit since Brandeis, and with each move came an attempt to improve. From Brandeis we went to Bryant in Rhode Island, then to UNH in New Hampshire, then back to Massachusetts at Nichols College.
In 2023 the program took us to Biddeford, Maine, and the University of New England. It was a good home, but it proved too small as we returned to our pre-COVID registration numbers. So we came home again to Nichols College in Dudley, in central Massachusetts, and that is where the school is today. This summer's dates are on the registration page.
What we lost, and what we kept
We will be honest about one thing. What we have lost is the glamour of the Celtics Rookie Camp, something even the Celtics no longer have. We no longer attract campers who come for the attraction of the Celtics. They come for the love of basketball. Our program is our attraction.
And that suits us. We are not a select school. We never have been. Red wanted a program that worked with youngsters who love the game and want to get better, and that is still who we are for: young men 11 to 18, in two divisions, who want to learn, compete and have fun. Our program is intense and it is challenging, but we cater to each camper precisely because we are not picking and choosing who gets in.
Something else has grown over the years that Red might not have predicted at Camp Milbrook. The common thread of the school today is campers from the U.S., Wales, Nova Scotia, Iceland and Italy playing and competing together. It is hard to estimate the value of that.
The alumni
Ask us for endorsements and we will point you to the people who know the school best. We are proud of the fact that our endorsements come from literally thousands of men who now share the title of "The Auerbach School Alumni." Some of them are on our staff today. One of them, K.C. Jones III, first came to us as a camper at Camp Milbrook where it all started, and now serves as our Associate Director.
That is what more than 65 years looks like: not a trophy case, but a very long list of names.
You can read the full history and see the old Camp Milbrook program covers on our History page. If you would like to add a name to the list this summer, the registration page has this summer's dates and details.