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SALT LAKE CITY — Alex Jensen, now a Utah Jazz assistant coach, remembers his Junior Jazz championship fondly.
"I know we played in the Salt Palace," Jensen said. "It was big time for being as young as I was, and then we won it. Everything stemmed from that. That's where it all started."
Jensen told his story Wednesday night as the Utah Jazz hosted a "Junior Jazz Generations" event where participants from all eras came out to celebrate the 33rd season of the NBA's premier youth basketball program.
It's not just a marketing line: Junior Jazz is the envy of the other teams in the league. Junior Jazz now has 50,000 to 60,000 participants from kindergarten through 12th grade. As a result, the Jazz have a six-state program that gets children wearing Jazz jerseys from an early age. Understandably, those people are more likely to become fans of the team than those who have no tie at all.
At Wednesday's event, Jensen and other members of the Jazz's coaching staff worked in drills with current youth participants of the Junior Jazz program. Together, they competed in shooting drills and showed off their dribbling skills. Then, all participants took a tour of the Jazz's locker room at the Zions Bank Basketball Center where they had the opportunity to meet and take a picture with current Jazzmen Rodney Hood and Trevor Booker.
Among the youthful participants was local celebrity J.P. Gibson, the 6-year-old Layton boy who is now cancer-free after battling leukemia for years of his young life.
The Jazz players are happy to spend time with the children because their lives were changed by similar meetings at similar ages.
Hood told his story of the first time he met an NBA player, current Brooklyn Net Joe Johnson.
"I was like 8 years old. I was in New Orleans and saw Joe Johnson down there, and he was just down there shopping," he said. "We saw him in the mall and got a chance to meet and take a picture with him, and it was cool."
"We had the opportunity to meet people that inspired us and just to give them the same chance, it's amazing," Hood said. "I was really excited, and I wanted to play ball every day just from that experience. I hope we do the same for them."
