POCATELLO – Young basketball players from eastern Idaho will get the chance to meet a professional basketball player next week.
A meet-and-greet with Oscar Tshiebwe, who joined the Utah Jazz this year, is
scheduled
for this upcoming Wednesday, June 18, in the gym at Irving Middle School in Pocatello. This event is free, and players with Pocatello’s Junior Jazz Basketball program and the rest of the public will be able to learn about Tshiebwe’s journey to the NBA, straight from the source.
“Being from southeast Idaho, most kids don’t have an opportunity to interact with professional athletes, and this meet-and-greet gives them the opportunity to see a real-life NBA player face-to-face in their hometown,” said Richard Henderson, team sports manager for the Pocatello Parks & Recreation Department.
Tshiebwe
grew up in the Democratic Republic of the Congo before moving to the United States, where he eventually played on the West Virginia Mountaineers and the Kentucky Wildcats, becoming the consensus national player of the year in 2022. He played on the Salt Lake City Stars in the 2022-2025 season before his first game for the Utah Jazz this year on March 28.
In 2015, Pocatello joined the Junior Jazz program, a youth basketball league overseen by the Utah Jazz, with teams in Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Arizona and Nevada. According to its
website
, “Junior Jazz emphasizes the development of teamwork and fundamental basketball skills.”
Thanks to the city’s participation in this league, Henderson said a Jazz player comes to Pocatello for a meet-and-greet every two years or so.
The meet-and-greet with Tshiebwe will start at 9 a.m. at Irving Middle School, located at 911 North Grant Avenue, and will last for around an hour. In addition to hearing from Tshiebwe, the Junior Jazz players will get the chance to run some drills with the player.
While people can just show up to the event, they can also use a Google form to
RSVP
.
After Henderson sent the meet-and-greet information to last year’s Junior Jazz players, the event received around a hundred RSVPs. Henderson said that, normally, around 50 players attend the event.
“I’ve got a lot of RSVPs, so it sounds like there’s going to be a lot of people. So we hope to fill the gym if we can,” Henderson said.
Henderson sees the chance to meet a basketball player like Tshiebwe as an inspiring experience for young people.
“Outside of the big markets … it’s hard to get a chance to meet a real-life NBA player,” Henderson said. “It’s great for the kids to get a chance to meet somebody like that and realize that they, with the right work and time and effort, that they might have the chance to be that person that comes in 10 to 12 years back to Pocatello and interacts with kids and inspires them to do the same.”
