Chris Roberts is get­ting the dream of a life­time.

The Bish­op's High School, To­ba­go Fifth Form stu­dent is off to Cana­da to at­tend the 12th edi­tion of Bas­ket­ball With­out Bor­ders (BWB) Amer­i­c­as Camp, which is or­gan­ised by the Na­tion­al Bas­ket­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (NBA) and the world gov­ern­ing body for bas­ket­ball, FI­BA. The camp will be held from Thurs­day (June 22) to Sun­day (June 25) at Cégep Édouard-Mont­petit in Longueuil near Mon­tre­al, Québec.

Roberts, a six-foot guard, cap­tained Bish­op's To­ba­go boys' Un­der 20 team to this year's Na­tion­al Sec­ondary Schools ti­tle and the school's U-17 squad to sec­ond place. He was named the Most Valu­able Play­er (MVP) in the U-20 di­vi­sion and is among the top boys and girls play­ers ages 18 and un­der from across Cana­da, Latin Amer­i­ca, and the Caribbean in­vit­ed to the Bas­ket­ball With­out Bor­ders Camp.

Roberts is look­ing for­ward to the ex­pe­ri­ence, say­ing: "I was over­joyed, I didn't ex­pect it to hap­pen. A lot of emo­tions. I was ner­vous a bit. It was good news. I said to my­self I have to go out there and do my best and rep­re­sent the coun­try well."

The Mt Pe­lier, To­ba­go res­i­dent is con­fi­dent he is pre­pared for the rigours of the camp.

"I know when I get there it will be an­oth­er set of nerves com­ing along but I know I have worked hard over the years. (I have had) good coach­es over the years. I be­lieve I will go out there and do my best," said the 16-year-old.

Cur­rent and for­mer NBA, WN­BA and FI­BA play­ers, leg­ends and coach­es, in­clud­ing Chris Bouch­er (Toron­to Rap­tors), Luguentz Dort (Ok­la­homa City Thun­ders) and Bennedict Math­urin (In­di­ana Pac­ers) are sched­uled to be in at­ten­dance.

NBA as­sis­tant coach­es Rod­ney Billups (Port­land Trail Blaz­ers), Joe Boy­lan (Min­neso­ta Tim­ber­wolves), Quin­ton Craw­ford (Dal­las Mav­er­icks), Bruce Fras­er (Gold­en State War­riors), Jay Her­nan­dez (Brook­lyn Nets) and Er­ic Khoury (Rap­tors 905) will al­so serve as BWB Amer­i­c­as coach­es, while for­mer WN­BA play­er Tam­era Young joins as part of the Coach­es De­vel­op Pro­gram and Ka­tia Sanon (Rap­tors 905) will serve as the camp’s ath­let­ic train­er.

The young play­ers will take part in life skills, lead­er­ship de­vel­op­ment and NBA Cares pro­gram­ming. They will al­so have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­vel­op along­side their peers and learn from NBA play­ers like Mon­tre­al’s Bennedict Man NBA Acad­e­my alum­nus and two-time BWB camper who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the camp a few years ago.

Roberts praised his coach at Elite Ea­gles Acad­e­my, Ker­ry Ce­les­tine, for the guid­ance he has pro­vid­ed.

"I want to cred­it my coach Ker­ry Ce­les­tine. He has been with me since day one. He was the rea­son I start­ed bas­ket­ball way back in first form and he stayed with me through­out the COVID (pan­dem­ic), train­ing for months, years. I just want to say thanks to him. Thanks to all the coach­ing staff who came along the way. Thanks to coach At­i­ba Dil­lon."

He did not for­get the roles his par­ents have played, adding: "I al­so want to say thanks to my moth­er Joan Ba­boolal, al­so my fa­ther Christo­pher Roberts for sup­port­ing me through­out this jour­ney."

Look­ing back at the suc­cess­ful sea­son, Roberts gave ku­dos to his team­mates for work­ing to­geth­er.

He said, "It was a good year of school bas­ket­ball. It was the first year back af­ter a cou­ple of years (due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic) and it was ac­tu­al­ly my last year in high school. The team came to­geth­er pret­ty nice­ly. We had a good bit of play­ers who came out to train every day and that led for us to build a bond and come down here and win that na­tion­al cham­pi­onship. I won the MVP for the U-20 di­vi­sion and I think that was one of the rea­sons that may have been se­lect­ed to at­tend this camp and rep­re­sent the coun­try. "

Roberts, whose broth­er Christo­pher Ju­nior is a na­tion­al ten­nis play­er, just com­plet­ed Caribbean Sec­ondary Ex­am­i­na­tions Cer­tifi­cate (CSEC) ex­ams in eight sub­jects- Math­e­mat­ics, Eng­lish Lan­guage, In­for­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy, Ge­og­ra­phy, Ad­di­tion­al Math­e­mat­ics, Physics, Prin­ci­ples of Busi­ness and Eco­nom­ics.

He told Guardian Me­dia that bal­anc­ing aca­d­e­mics with sports is im­por­tant.

"It all comes with get­ting used to it so the num­ber of sub­jects was not nec­es­sar­i­ly a strain. Just des­ig­nat­ing time for each one and putting aside time for train­ing. So dur­ing school time, I will do my work, then go to train­ing af­ter. If I have any school work to do af­ter I do it. It is just a bal­ance, you have to find a way to keep up in both as­pects and it came to­geth­er pret­ty nice­ly."

His ad­vice to young play­ers is to "keep work­ing, keep fight­ing if you love the game".

"You will find time to put in your work by your­self and with your team. Be open to what­ev­er your coach­es have to say, any­one who has ex­pe­ri­ence around you and op­por­tu­ni­ties will come your way," said Roberts, who left on Wednes­day.