lawsg corrections & addenda

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SoCalHoops Tournament News

LA Watts Summer Games: Corrections,
Addenda, Etc.--(June 29, 1999)

In our report on the LA Watts Summer Games, we made several errors, and we just don't know what we could have been thinking.

We wrote that the basketball component of the Games has only been around for about 10 years, which was just flat-out wrong. Had we checked our press kit (which the good folks at the LA Junior Chamber of Commerce gave us when we helped out on the seeding and scheduling committee several weeks ago for the boys tournament) we would have easily seen that the boys' basketball tournament has been around since the beginning.

One reader, Daniel Rivero, wrote to us, noting:

You are the best when it comes to SoCal high school hoops (better than those other more highly publicized guys). However, I must correct you about the L.A. Watts Summer games. They began in 1968 and have always included basketball. Some of the early MVP's were:

1970 Raymond Lewis (Verbum Dei)
1971 Jackie Robinson (Morningside)
1972 Ricky Walker (Dorsey)
1973 Michael Santos (Morningside)
1974 Roy Hamilton (Verbum Dei)
1975 James Wilkes (Dorsey)
1976 Henry Johnson (Manual Arts)
1978 Ray Whiting (L. B. Poly)
1979 Dwayne Polee (Manual Arts)
1980 Terry Wright (Manual Arts)
1983 John Williams (Crenshaw)
Brad Winslow (Santa Monica)

Oh, and the other mistake we made was our reference to Brandon "someone" who really should have been Brandon Heath (6'-4" So. SG/SF) who evidently played exceptionally well during several of the preliminary games in which Westchester played. Brandon is still pretty young, but coaches should make a point of checking him out this summer, as he'll probably still continue to play for Top Prospects, so look for him at the Slam N Jam NIT tournament and possibly in Vegas at the Big Time Tournament .