In an effort to give kids a chance to play basketball during their schools' off-season, BJ Robertson created a multifaceted program that includes camps, clinics, personalized training and 36 Amateur Athletic Union teams.

Blueprint Basketball began in 2019 and serves up to 300 kids a year. Players in kindergarten through 12th grade come to Chittenden County from across Vermont and even from New York to participate. Four of the five girls on one AAU team this fall traveled more than an hour each way to get to practice.

They learn more than the game, Robertson said. "With sports, it can put you through a lot of different times — fun times winning championships to maybe having a losing season. The highs of the highs and the lows of the lows," he said. "But I think it teaches you a lot in life."

Robertson, 38, remembers his own highs and lows on the court with equal clarity. As a sixth grader at Lyman C. Hunt Middle School in Burlington, he was striving to qualify for the A team, but he didn't make the cut. So he worked hard to prove himself and joined the A team in seventh grade. In eighth grade, he got his first slam dunk during the last game of the season. It's a story he often shares with his players.

"The crowd went silent. They weren't expecting me to dunk the basketball, so they all got quiet, and they were shocked at the same time," Robertson said. "My point guard, who passed it to me, was jumping like we won the championship."

Robertson became an all-star player for Burlington High School, and his team won the state championship in 2001, when he was a junior. Awarded the title Mr. Basketball in his senior year, Robertson is one of 11 players in the school's history to score more than 1,000 points, with 1,412 during his high school career. He ranks third for the most points scored in a season.

He was recruited to play at Saint Michael's College, where he became an all-star player. After college, he played for the Vermont Frost Heaves, a professional team, from 2006 to 2009.

Robertson said out of all of his accomplishments, "Winning the championship was my favorite one just because it was a team effort. All the individual accolades, it wouldn't have happened without the team." His father, Beverlis Robertson, was the assistant coach at the time.

The BHS gym holds a lot of Robertson family memories. Robertson's older brother Manny's team won the state basketball championship his junior year, too. BJ Robertson was the team's ball boy.

"It's very nostalgic always coming in here," Robertson said during an October interview in the gym, the place where things have come full circle. An assistant BHS boys' basketball coach from 2013 to 2017, Robertson has been named head coach and begins the job this month, just after Blueprint Basketball's programs have ended for the year.

He won't be working in the old gym, though. The closure of the school and its planned demolition due to contamination by carcinogenic polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, means the team needs to find another venue.

Other high school coaches value the off-season training that Blueprint Basketball provides. Mark Pfaff, the girls' basketball head coach at Mount Mansfield Union High School in Jericho, has several players who participate in Blueprint each year. Robertson's positive demeanor creates an upbeat atmosphere for kids to learn, Pfaff said.

"We tell our kids that from December to February, everybody is doing exactly the same thing. You're all practicing four days a week," Pfaff said. "The time to get better, if you're serious about the game, is when our season stops in the spring and summer. We call that the 'improvement season.'"

Eighth grader Emma Danaher, who attends Albert D. Lawton Intermediate School in Essex Junction, said the best part of joining Blueprint has been "growing so much as a player with skills, ball handling, shooting."

Eighth grader Alexis Menard-O'Neil, who attends Mater Christi School in Burlington, said, "I like the energy that the practice brings. And I like the way that [Robertson] coaches and the style of it."

To run Blueprint programs, Robertson has enlisted two dozen coaches, including his father. His younger sister, Brittany Sandlin, has led fitness training classes, and his own three sons and nephews all play in the program. He relies heavily on his partner in business and in life, Cara Caswell, who coordinates the behind-the-scenes and administrative demands.

"My dining room table, I call it 'Blueprint Headquarters,'" Caswell said.

"Cara and I have a lot of conversations at home about what Blueprint is," Robertson said. "We're a family. Things aren't going to be easy in life, and same thing on the basketball court. How do you get through and persevere through hard times? Mental toughness," Robertson said. "Not just to be great basketball players but to be great people. In our house, we always say, 'It's bigger than basketball.' And it is."

Robertson hopes to find a permanent home base for Blueprint Basketball, ideally a large facility with two or three courts. Currently, practices are held at a rotating list of gymnasiums in Chittenden County, including at Saint Michael's College, Lyman C. Hunt Middle School, Edmunds Middle School and a handful of churches.

"It takes time. Over these years I've been coaching, I've realized things don't just happen right away just because you want them to," Robertson said. "My plan B is to make my plan A work. So even if plan A doesn't work at that time, I can go to plan B, C or D. But eventually, I'm going to get to plan A."

The AAU program costs $475 in the fall and $975 for the spring/summer session. If the fee would prevent a player from participating, their family is encouraged to email Blueprint Basketball. Visit blueprintbasketballvt.com to learn more.