Dawson County High School Head Tigers Basketball Coach Thad Burgess and his team began summer basketball practice last Friday, May 22. The team is preparing for several games and camps this summer. Dawson is coming off an appearance in the state AA tournament.

While football has spring practice, basketball coaches have the summer to evaluate their players before next season begins in October.

Basketball coaches have different approaches on how they handle the summer workouts. All workouts are voluntary as mandated by the Georgia High School Association.

The Tigers will use three weeks in June to test their players and see how they perform. The team will practice five days from this past Friday until May 29. They will begin play at Buford High School on June 1 with games against Chestatee (4:20 p.m.) and Buford at 6:40 p.m. They will continue play the next day at Buford with games against North Hall and East Hall.

Burgess and his players will then travel to Berry College in Rome for their first team camp on June 4. The team will return to Dawsonville on Saturday.

They will practice three more days before traveling to the University of Georgia for another team camp from June 12 through June 14.

June 15 the team will travel to Dobbs Creek in Cumming for a team camp that will play only at night. The Tigers will play all week at Dobbs Creek.

Dawson will finish up with a trip to Birmingham-Southern from June 22 through June 24.

“We will get several games in this summer,” said Burgess. “It will give us a chance to kind of see where we are. We have traveled to Georgia and Birmingham-Southern before, so our kids are real familiar with these places.”

E-mail Pam Jacobs at sports@dawsonnews.com.