booker

SoCalHoops Tournament News

Long Beach Fall Hoops Classic:
Our Bad: Don't Judge A Booker By Its Cover--(Sept. 13, 1998)

A rose, is a rose, is a rose, right?

Well, one Booker isn't just like any other Booker.

Seems we made a major gaffe last night when we wrote our "Brief Notes" on the Saturday doings at the dada Fall Oops Classic. We confused Tony and Nick Booker and that was very bad. We wrote our "notes" last night at about 2:00 a.m., so we'll use that as our excuse, but some people weren't very amused, and there's at least one coach out there who'd love to string us up by our fingernails.

Here's what we wrote:

Tony Booker (6'-5" Sr. SG) gets the nod as the busiest player in the tournament, as we saw him playing for three different teams during the day. He did look pretty good with East-West, but he looked even better with the San Diego Future Stars coached by Fentriss Wynn.

Let's get this straight:

First, there are two Bookers. One is Nick, the other is Tony. Nick is a junior. Tony is a senior. Nick is from San Diego. Tony is from Torrance. Nick is from The Bishop's School in La Jolla. Tony is from Bishop Montgomery.

Got it? Good.

Nick Booker (6'-5" Jr. G) played the entire weekend only for the San Diego Future Stars coached by Fentriss Winn. This is the same team which knocked off QBL on Saturday in their second game of the day at Long Beach Wilson. Nick didn't play with anyone else. According to his coach, he has chosen to stay and play with a club he has helped build since the 6th grade, and along with some very talented kids has made the SD Future Stars a top travel team, and from what we saw this weekend, we agree. He and Wayne Bernard of Horizon Christian of San Diego were two of the top players in the Dada, and were named to the "All Tournament Team." On Saturday, Wayne played very well against Jason Kapono and he also had a terrific game against Tito Maddox this morning. The San Diego Future Stars is a great team, and they also stress the academic side of things: The team boasts a core average GPA of 3.2, and all the members of the team have a minimum SAT or PSAT of 1150 (some have higher scores). Unfortunately, the San Diego Future Stars were eliminated this morning Team Reebok/Compton by a single point, 57-56, and Compton eventually went on to play in the final against The Hood (more about that later). San Diego also featured DJ Hicks (5'-11" Jr. PG) from El Camino HS, Oceanside, who did a great job of frustrating Tito Maddox of Compton this morning.

And actually, if anyone should feel bad about what we wrote, it would be Tony Booker (6'-5" Sr. F) from Bishop Montgomery High in Torrance, CA, a 230 lb. guy who is probably a mid to high D-1 player who played with an "East Coast-West Coast Connection" team which was supposed to be coached by both Littel Vaughn of Philadelphia and local coach Wayne Slappy, a team which did pretty well considering the circumstances, i.e., they played without a bunch of the guys on the roster who somehow got lost in transit with Vaughn and never made it to the tournament. Nevertheless, East-West still managed to finish second in their pool, only to have to face QBL this morning at 9:00 a.m. in a game in which they were defeated.

Our apologies to Nick and Tony for any confusion. And we certainly don't think they're vagabonds or carpetbaggers. No way. These guys stuck it out with their own teams.