ST. LOUIS — Free throws are sometimes a lost art in the game of basketball. Fans and players often get caught up in the flashy dunks, drives and fade-away threes. But, as we've seen all too often, free throws can be the determining factor in whether a team wins or loses.
There's one St. Louis area basketball player who knows the importance of free throws and has become the master of the art of sinking buckets from the charity stripe.
Twenty-two-year-old Jake Kampf is a 5'10", 150 pound shooting guard from Chesterfield, and he's the best free throw shooter you've ever seen.
"He's getting to where he's going to be in that realm of an outlier. Where Malcolm Gladwell speaks about it in his book... 10,000 of something and you become something unique in a world," Kampf's trainer Dennis Beckett said. "That's four hours a day for like 13 years. Jake's getting there."
Need an example? Well, in late February Kampf started shooting free throws at the St. Louis Basketball Academy. He didn't miss until his 550th shot. Yep, 549 free throws in a row.
"The ball went in and out and I kind of just laid on the floor for a minute. I was so tired mentally and physically," Kampf said of his reaction when shot 550 rimmed out.
Kampf isn't the first St. Louis free throw prodigy, though. De Smet's Blake Ahearn and Valley Park's Gary Buchanan set the tone, and were also trained by Beckett.
As for Kampf, he's now a shooter in search of a team. After two years at Knox College in Illinois, he's trying to find a new place for his shooting skills to flourish.
Kampf knows he's not exactly what most college basketball teams are looking for in the eye test, but he has a message to all of them.
"I'm undersized, skinny. Not the typical what you'd look for in a basketball player," Kampf said. "But watch me play and then you might have a different opinion on me."