The Dave Hopla Story

Years ago I attended George Mason University basketball camp headed by Paul Westhead. Each day we had a guest speaker, including some NBA stars like Washington Bullet Doug Overton. (WOW!)

One day our speaker was not an NBA player, so all the kids were upset. It was a shooting coach that was going to teach us how to shoot. The guy came in and introduced himself and started to lecture about the importance of shooting. During his entire lecture, he swished foul shot after foul shot. He missed 0 shots in fifteen minutes, and was talking the entire time.

As the lecture continued, he switched to shooting one handed foul shots. Swish, Swish, Swish. He didn't miss one shot.

Next, he went into his gym bag and grabbed what appeared to be a baseball hat. This hat was a little different because there was a hand glued to the brim. The wearer of the hat could not clearly see out of it due to the giant hand in the face, hense the name "Hand In The Face Hat".

The shooting instructor put on the hat and began to drain jumpers from all over the court. I think he may have actually missed 2 shots with this hat on. It was really amazing. The entire time, talking and showing us how to use perfect shooting form.

Hopla is also responsible for helping inspire Gilbert Arenas to keep track of his shootings. His basketball shootings, not his locker room gun shootings.

So that wasn't an NBA player, but a coach, so yeah story over.