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Tradition

Originally conceived and developed by Milton and Joseph Kutsher, alongside legendary basketball coach Clair F Bee in 1968, Kutsher’s Sports Academy was the first camp to offer an entirely elective sports program, and the first traditional camp to offer sessions throughout the summer.

KSA was known as a hotbed for basketball throughout the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s. Annual visitors and clinicians included the likes of Wilt Chamberlain, Walt Frazier, Julius Erving, and Pete Maravich. In fact, the first meeting between NBA legends Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul Jabbar took place at the Maurice Stokes Game hosted at Kutsher's, and Wilt was a part of KSA every summer from its inception in 1968 until his death in 1999.


Today our campers play on the same floor that has been graced by those NBA legends. The KSA field house is home to the original, pre-parquet Boston Garden floor, which was donated to camp by former Celtics coach Red Auerbach in the 1970s. When Bob Cousy came to the Stokes Game that year and bounced the ball on the floor a couple of times, he jokingly declared, "Same dead spots.”


In 2008, the camp moved from the Catskills to its present site on Lake Buel in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts. Today KSA is as popular as ever, and in 2010 a brand new 20,000 square foot field house -- named “Legends Hall” -- was erected, and pays tribute to the history of Kutsher’s Sports Academy.

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