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What a treat. That's the one thing I kept thinking to myself as I sat in the gym at Weldon High Friday night and took in the annual prep aall-star basketball games.
Whoever came up with this idea years ago is a freaking genius. Personally, it's one of my favorite sporting events in the Roanoke Valley. The format was changed a bit this year because of some last-minute cancellations and a lot of no-shows (Daily Herald Player of the Year, Elton Williams was MIA), but the show still went on.
The area's top seniors took on a team composed of the top juniors in girls' and boys' basketball. It's like our own version of the rookie-sophomore game during the NBA's all-star weekend.
Normally, the contest has the top seniors from the 1A schools versus the top seniors from the 2A schools, but it worked out just fine this year. With a bunch of seniors and a stable of juniors on standby, the show went on.
And what a show it was. All season long, I travel from gym to gym in the Roanoke Valley and watch these players battle it out against one another in intense competition.
In the back of my mind, I always wanted to see these players in a game outside of their various coach's systems and just see them play ball. Pick-up ball, And1 style. It's nice to have a showcase like this when the players can just have fun and cap off their playing careers with a game amongst the best from the area.
The players love it. The fans love it. It's wonderful to see two players who months ago were bitter rivals now standing at halfcourt sharing a laugh.
The sportsmanship also steps up a notch in a game like this. On several occasions Friday night, I saw players helping each other off the floor, exchanging high-fives or giving words of encouragement.
Granted, these guys are natural competitors. On the sidelines I reminded Northampton-East senior James Long that this was just an all-star game after he fouled Eric Ford on a fast break.
Maybe he took the advice, because in the second half he pulled up while trailing an opposing player on a fastbreak and let the layup go. In a real game, he would have surely went after the block, but this was a showcase event.
The junior girls gave a glimpse of the future by running the senior girls out of the gym. And the junior boys, all eight of them, gave the 16 seniors all they could handle before falling to the upperclassmen, thanks to a last-second shot by Northwest Halifax's Hakeem Clements.
And the sight of the night was witnessing all the senior boys rushing the floor after Clements' shot shanked through the nets, knowing that no matter how their season ended at their respective schools, they all ended their high school hoops careers as winners.
The most stressful thing of the entire evening had to fall on the shoulders of senior head coach and former Weldon standout Anthony Faulcon, who had to find a way to manage minutes between 16 guys looking to get some time in their final high school game.
Faulcon had the luxury of being able to sub five men at a time, and put together some nice combinations.
To see North Edgecombe's K.J. Cooper and Terrell Davis in the same lineup as Weldon's Deandre Person and Northamton-East Deshawn Vick was equal to seeing Rasheed Wallace, Jerry Stackhouse, Vince Carter, Jeff McInnis and Antwan Jamison on the same floor during the first year of the “World's Greatest Alumni” game a few years back.
The backcourt combo of Ervin Brinkley and Kilauntae Scott was probably the quickest (and smallest) that I've ever seen, but very effective.
With any all-star event, chemistry was a problem early on, and it almost cost the seniors, but hats off to Faulcon for finding the right combo to pull out the victory.
No matter the outcome, in my mind everyone was a winner.
The players put on a show and most importantly, had fun while doing it.
And I for one had a good time watching.
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