burlison top 10

SoCal High School & Prep Report

Frank Burlison's Top 10 Reasons
to Attend the MLK Challenge--(January 13, 1998)

If you've checked around at SoCalHoops recently, you've seen that we're featuring a "special focus" on our main page this month: The 4th Annual MLK Challenge, which will be held at Pauley Pavilion January 19, 1998.

If you want or need further information on the event, check out our preview, or visit the official MLK Challenge website, which is being put together by Steve Alas (who also maintains a great UCLA Basketball "Unofficial" website), with previews of the teams being written by Michael Miller of West Coast Hoops. Even though his previews and rosters aren't yet up, we're anticipating that they'll be of the same fine quality and genre as those he's already put up over at West Coast Hoops.

The event is sponsored by Dominguez High, and Dinos Trigonis and Phil Gatton are the head honchos. But this event is really more about the teams that will be playing in this one-day extravaganza, and not about who's putting on the show or promoting it.

Today's Long Beach Press-Telegram (January 13, 1997 Online Edition) features Frank Burlison's column (which has actually been up for a couple of days). But since the PT no longer archives it's stories and columns, we're going to preserve for posterity what Frank had to say about the MLK Challenge. We certainly don't think he'll mind, and he might even appreciate it. We hope the PT's lawyers do. Anyway, here it is:

"Here's 10 reasons why one should attend the fourth Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Challenge Monday at Pauley Pavilon from start (9:30 a.m., Redondo vs. South Torrance) to finish (8 p.m., Glendora vs. Bell-Jeff):

"1. You can see Southern California's best sophomore (Andrew Zahn of Redondo), and its most underrated sophomore (Travon Bryant of Long Beach Jordan);

"2. One of California most underrated players - Andrew Gaulden - will try to lead Anaheim Canyon past Mater Dei and its two stars of the future, freshmen Eric Soderberg and Cedric Boseman;

"3. Junior Jason Kapono and Artesia will be hooking up against a Jordan team that has as much underclass talent as any team in Southern California;

"4. A matchup of San Diego's best - University High - against Compton, is one of the eight games on tap;

"5. So is a rematch of the Best in the West Invitational quarterfinal in which Poly knocked off Fairfax last month at Long Beach City College;

"6. The opportunity to see a game between Crenshaw and Etiwanda in which both might score at least 100 points;

"7. You can see seven members of the Press-Telegram's Best in the West first team: Ricky Anderson (Poly), Tony Bland and David Bluthenthal (Westchester), Ruben Douglas (Bell-Jeff), David Hamilton (Compton), Tayshaun Prince (Dominguez) and Luke Walton (University);

"8. Southern California's most overlooked - by college coaches - player during the early signing period, Crenshaw High guard Brandon Hawkins, will probably light up Pauley for about 35 points.

"9. The player with the potential to be the elite high school center in the country three years from now, 7-footer Tyson Chandler, will try to help Prince and the Dominguez Dons knock off Westchester in a battle of the two most talented high school teams in Southern California;

"10. What better way to test your basketball endurance? Unless, of course, you spent last Saturday watching every college game that was televised into Southern California.

That last bit, number 10, was an "inside" reference to something else in Frank's column, having to do with the inordinate amount of college hoops broadcast this past weekend, something like close to thirty games. In any event, Frank is right. This will be one of the best, if not the best one day event this year in SoCal. Don't miss it.