Staff photo by E.J. Harris Irrigon's Adrian Romero puts up a jump shot over Nixyaawii's Damon Kipp in the Knights' 61-39 win against the Golden Eagles on Friday in Hermiston.

IRRIGON — The 2013-15 Irrigon boys basketball teams still are revered as some of the best in Oregon.

The Knights went 81-4 during that time, under two coaches.

The players have stayed in touch, and Mitch Thompson, coach of the 2015 state championship team, is included in that group.

The coach and players now are giving back to the community that supported them years ago, hosting a free bilingual basketball camp for boys and girls July 31-Aug. 1 at the outdoor courts at A.C. Houghton Elementary School in Irrigon.

“We are super excited about it,” said Adrian Romero, co-director of the camp. “I’m sure the kids and the parents will enjoy it. We are expecting kids from Irrigon, Boardman, Hermiston. Everywhere in our little pocket of the state.”

Thompson, who coached Romero his senior year, also is a co-director of the camp. They are getting help from former teammates Fredy Vera, AJ Timpy, Anthony Landeros and Xavier Rambo.

Romero also is hoping to get a helping hand from his sister, Jazlyn Romero, a standout basketball player at Hermiston High School, and now a javelin thrower on the Oregon State University track and field team.

“It will be great if she can make it work with her schedule,” Romero said of his sister. “She is a good sports figure and she is good with kids. If she wanted to play with us when she was younger, she had to play at a similar level. She got really tough.”

The camp was just a thought Thompson and Romero batted around one day.

“We just wanted to put on a camp in town,” Romero said. “There aren’t too many resources for the kids. It will give them something to look forward to. We wanted to make it inclusive. Several families are bilingual or only speak Spanish. We wanted to make sure they felt welcome.”

More than 100 kids have already signed up. There is no deadline to register. Online registration can be found at bitly.ws/fxni.

Parents must accompany their children on the first day of the camp to sign waivers and make sure they are aware of the schedule.

There will be four sessions each day, with pre-K to third grade at 9 a.m., followed by fourth to sixth grade at 10:30 a.m., and seventh to eighth grade at noon. The session for high school players will be at 7 p.m.

“We will have food, we are supplying water, and we will be handing out school supplies,” Romero said. “The kids will get a T-shirt, and there will be prizes. Most of the kids signed up are 5 to 9 years old. They have so much energy, and they are a fun age group to be around.”

Putting on a venture as large as this one can’t be done alone. The group is getting help from Made to Thrive and Eric and Irma Solis, and the Sepeni family will be feeding the troops.

The group also is getting help with T-shirts and basketballs from Jordan Kent, who played basketball, football and track at University of Oregon, and has worked as a broadcaster for the Portland Trail Blazers. Kent also holds youth camps, which is where he, Romero and Thompson connected.

“Mitch and I worked a camp for Jordan and we became good friends,” said Romero, who works for an ethics and compliance software company as a recruiter.

Thompson works with the NBA G League team Los Capitanes in Mexico City.

“As a former coach at Irrigon, I am super glad to be coming back for the clinic,” Thompson said.