jason day mlk general

SoCal High School & Prep Report

Jason Day: A Few MLK
Challenge Observations--(January 21, 1998)

There were more than a few of us from SoCalHoops at the 4th Annual MLK Challenge on Monday. So in addition to our usual rambling reports and game reports, Jason Day offers a few of his own. And if you want to write to him to complain or to send him some props, feel free to contact him at elgee333@pacbell.net. Here's his "general" take on the day, the event, and the folks in the house.

4^TH ANNUAL MLK CHALLENGE

AN OBSERVATION OR TWO

by Jason Day

One of the nice things about being a "stringer" for SoCalHoops is that I get to rant, rave, and ramble about whatever I want and nobody can mess with my paycheck.

Today let’s talk about the 4^th Annual Martin Luther King Challenge, an eight game exhibition extravaganza that is fast becoming the highlight High School B-ball event of the year here in SoCal. The fact that it has been the only place in the last two years where you could see the two acknowledged No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the state play each other has not hurt the rep of this great event.

Last year it was eventual Division I champ, L.A. Crenshaw, against eventual Division II Champ, Compton Dominguez. This year Dominguez was back to take on current consensus number 1 in Division I, L.A. Westchester. Last year also showcased Harvard-Westlake, and Crossroads, both eventual state champs in their respective divisions.

The rest of this year’s 16 team field included a who’s who of SoCal powerhouses. Redondo, Artesia, Compton, Fairfax, Glendora, Poly, Shaw, USDHS, L.B. Jordan, Etiwanda.

The featured players list contains names we’ll being repeating for years to come at next levels to come. Prince, Thomas, Jefferson, Anderson, Moore (Marcus AND Deaundre), Hamilton, Bluthenthal, Kapono, Bryant, Calloway, Peterson, O’Quinn, Walton (all of 'em) Abramowitz, Bland, Chandler, Jacobsen, Douglas, Zahn, and a whole lot more.

I got to see four of the eight games and my reports on those four will follow. SoCalHoops has already featured some of the game write-ups from some dedicated staff who arrived just after the doors opened, and stayed till they closed. And these are some excellent detailed write-ups, so I’ll confine mine to some general observations.

In the meantime some rants and raves on the event as a whole.

The food. Ha Ha, brought my own, a Reebok bag FULL. I saw the pizza, Ha Ha.

The crowd. Big fun. More basketball luminaries than you could shake a stick at. College coaches: USC, Arizona, UCLA, Pepperdine, and more. High School coaches: damn near everybody in SoCal, and even, my new friend, Coach Vonn Webb from Washington Union in NoCal (whom SoCalHoops helped get in the door free at 9:00 a.m. through the press area--hey, a guy who drives all the way from Fresno--that's right, drives-- to see an event of this type, and who coaches a great player like Arkansas-bound Chris Jeffries, should at least get in for free, don't you agree? Phil, you do agree, don't you?). Sponsor types: Nike, Reebok, Gatorade, Spaulding, and more. Youth league types: Slam n Jam, Ultra Student Athletes, ARC, SoCal All Stars, Top Prospects. Basketball junkies of every ilk. Media types: the Times, Press-Telegram, Daily News (and Breeze), Fox Sports, West Coast Hoops, and SoCalHoops, and more.

The company. I spent my day next to Mike Miller of West Coast Hoops on one side, and George Raveling and the Nike (main sponsor) contingent on the other. In fact the Nike folks were kind enough to let me occupy one of the seats reserved for them, thanks guys. Between George’s colorful stories about this kid or that kid, or this program or that program, or this game or that game, and Mike’s incredible encyclopedic knowledge of who’s who in West Coast ball, I was in hog heaven.

Speaking of Mike, because the stat program was not available, Mike’s tracking of each game was transcribed [by Tracy Pierson, then copied onto sheets by Phil Gatton] and these became the "official" stats handed out to the media. Now I kept my own stats for the four games I saw, and it was all I could do just to watch, see who did what, record it, and get back to watching. Mike was so smooth it was if he was a few seconds ahead of every play. Everytime I asked him who did what, or how many this or that he had for so and so, he had it. That’s every game, every play. The guy should have "Pentium Inside" stamped on his forehead. [Or maybe think about replacing Chick Hearn.]

The images. You had to feel sorry for the Fairfax team as they entered Pauley trailing their two wounded warriors, Joe Shipp, and Tommy Johnson, both in identical casts on their almost identically broken foot. Later the able bodied Lions lost a big lead and limped to a loss against Poly. We wish Joe and Tommy the speediest of recoveries.

You had to hope Jason Thomas would play for Dominguez, but since it was still officially up in the air by the time they entered Pauley, we couldn’t help but speculate about the fact that he was the only "player" who was not carrying a gym bag. He was also sporting a noticeable limp favoring his recently healed broken foot. (Mike says the injury was just like Shipp’s and Johnson’s, weird huh?) Well he did play and the next image was the big ovation he got when he came in the game, rusty (and heavy) but playing.

Continuing with the injury image theme, all of us Bruin fans could not have been feelin' good about looking all over Pauley for Baron Davis and then finally finding him on crutches after the Westchester – Dominguez game. In the middle of the afternoon the MLK announcer started a teaser relating to identifying a player who shot, or is shooting, 90% from the line and scored 1400 on his SAT. Later the announcer finally named the mystery player by "introducing" "Lord" Baron Davis. The problem was that no one ever pointed Baron out and 8,000 plus heads were swiveling all over the place to catch a glimpse of and salute the Bruin freshman star. Just after the Comets vs. Dons game, Baron was standing in the crowd around Dominguez freshman Tyson Chandler and supporting himself on crutches. UCLA had been practicing (for the game against USC coming up on Wednesday night) in the auxiliary gym while much of the MLK was going on in Pauley. Baron told me that he hurt the foot, didn’t know how bad it was, and was scheduled to get it X-rayed the next day (Tuesday) NOTE: UCLA reported on Tuesday that he had injured a toe and might not play against the Trojans. Speedy recovery Baron.

I want to send a shout out to the unidentified gentleman who did the eloquent recitation of one of Dr. King’s speeches. It was a shame that there wasn’t a stronger attempt to get the entire crowd’s attention so that everyone there could have enjoyed his stirring rendition from beginning to end.

Last and most important image. The games. The four I saw were all first rate contests with all the elements we "b’ballaholics" need to feed our hoop habit. My understanding is that the other four were just as good. Outstanding players on outstanding teams guided by outstanding coaching staffs.

I have no reservations about joining the growing chorus that’s calling this event the premier event of it’s kind anywhere around these parts.

Congratulations to co-directors Dino Trigonis, and Russell Otis for putting on a first rate show. Thanks to Phil Gatton for putting up with and taking such good care of us media types.

Make sure you check out the SoCalHoops (Jerry’s) reports on all eight of the games. Then catch my reports on the four I saw [which we hope will follow soon]. And drop a line if you feel like it.

See ya later

Jason Day