Koryn Greiwe got her athletic career started through the local Foundation For Youth.
For her senior project, Greiwe knew exactly where to turn.
Greiwe decided to give back to the place where she started by hosting a free-throw shooting clinic Wednesday with proceeds going to FFY.
“They gave me a place to start. I’m so grateful for everything they’ve done for me, and I wanted to give back to them,” Greiwe said. “I wanted to be a role model for the younger kids because when I was younger, I always looked up to older people. Having this for my senior project, I wanted to give back to them and give them the experience to have fun and learn from me and my experiences in basketball.”
Greiwe has been the top scorer and player for the Olympians the past three years and is a three-time Republic Girls Basketball Player of the Year. But there’s one stat that she emphasizes the most — free throws.
In her high school career, Greiwe has shot 85% from the charity stripe. She holds school records for most consecutive free throws made with 14 and for most free throws made in a single game with 21.
Greiwe mentioned that she has a piece of tape marked in the driveway of her house that was put there was she was younger. She said she still practices from that spot on a regular basis.
“I wanted to do something in basketball that was really important to me,” Greiwe said. “I think all the aspects are important, but free throws are the biggest difference in a game. Showing them how to shoot free throws and the steps to make a free throw is what I wanted to teach them.”
About 80 kids showed up for the two different sessions, one for incoming second-to-fourth-graders and the other for incoming fifth-to-eighth-graders.
During the fifth-to-eighth-grade session, Greiwe explained that she shoots 100 free throws a day, and her goal is to hit 90%. She went into detail about the three techniques she uses to improved her shooting — form, focus and routine.
Before the kids broke off into separate groups, Greiwe started out shooting 10 free throws. The first attempt was off the mark, but she made the remaining nine to reach her goal of 90%.
The kids then dispersed into groups every few minutes, with each group led by Greiwe’s Olympian teammates, to work on each of Greiwe’s three steps.
Greiwe said free throws are very important and usually a big difference between winning and losing a game.
A recent example that was given happened Tuesday night in the NBA Western Conference Finals Game 2 between the Los Angeles Clippers and Phoenix Suns. Paul George, an 85% career free-throw shooter, missed two free throws for the Clippers with 8.2 seconds left. The Suns converted an inbound alley-oop with 0.7 seconds left to win the game 104-103.
“I’ve been shooting free throws for a long time. People take (free throws) for granted,” Greiwe said. “I wanted to teach them now before they got older so they’ll really understand why free throws are such a big part of basketball.”
At the very end of the session, Greiwe asked if the kids had gotten better. Greiwe then put all those three techniques to use when she stepped up to the line for 10 more free throws. She sank the first nine shots, but before the tenth shot was attempted, everyone in the gym did everything they could to make her lose either her form, focus or routine. She had none of it with the final attempt, hitting nothing but net.
Just for fun, Greiwe, with her teammates surrounding the free-throw line, attempted to shoot a free throw with her eyes closed. The first shot was short, the second shot was off the back of the iron and the third shot went through the net.
“I always try to put myself in game situations, and even at the end, I shoot with my eyes closed for fun because it really shows that you’re actually working on your form, your routine and your focus,” Greiwe said. That’s something I really wanted to stress (Wednesday) — form, routine and focus.”
T-shirts were sold at the clinic, and all the proceeds went directly to FFY.
The free throw clinic originally was scheduled to take place at East, but due to the recent rain that flooded the gym, the event was held at Central Middle School. Greiwe is thankful for everyone that played a part of making the clinic still happen.
“I wanted to thank Central Middle School,” Greiwe said. “The community as a whole has been so supportive when East’s gym got shut down. There were so many people asking, ‘What are you going to do?’ or ‘How can we help?’ The support I have, and the support Columbus gives to all people, it really showed.”
