{"id":2354,"date":"2010-12-21T16:40:21","date_gmt":"2010-12-21T22:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.nsr-inc.com\/\/?p=2354"},"modified":"2010-12-21T16:40:21","modified_gmt":"2010-12-21T22:40:21","slug":"holiday-tournaments-offer-good-times-for-communities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/holiday-tournaments-offer-good-times-for-communities\/","title":{"rendered":"Holiday Tournaments Offer Good Times for Communities"},"content":{"rendered":"

Familiar Setting Brings People Together in a Traditional Event<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A great tradition in\u00a0high school basketball all across America are local Christmas and Holiday tournaments.\u00a0 Usually played\u00a0among area competition,\u00a0these two-day events give kids\u00a0a nice break from the regular season grind and offer fans the chance to see nearby teams lock horns in what could best be called “pride games.”\u00a0 Playing for a tall trophy\u00a0is\u00a0fun for the players and a month into the season,\u00a0vying for hardware is often exactly what teams need to keep their focus.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fans\u00a0have a chance to escape for a few hours from all the meaningless bowl games\u00a0on television and the\u00a0fridges full of\u00a0 leftovers.\u00a0\u00a0 Whole families, grandparents in tow, enter from the chilled air hoping to get a good seat near their favorite spot.\u00a0\u00a0Alumni visiting from out of town\u00a0reconnect with old friends and enjoy an hour or so of nostalgia as their former team takes the floor to once again face their hated, cross-town rivals.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The concession stand has homemade cookies laid\u00a0out on the counter and the familiar sound of\u00a0the popcorn machine and the welcome aroma of\u00a0corn being freshly popped draws you\u00a0over.\u00a0 The faces of the people\u00a0selling goods for the booster club are familiar and friendly.\u00a0 Teenagers stand in small groups\u00a0in front of the trophy case talking about God\u00a0knows what, but they’re at the game instead of riding around town\u00a0getting into trouble,\u00a0so not to worry.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

As opposing teams take the floor, they burst through butcher block paper signs promising a beat down.\u00a0\u00a0Folks in the\u00a0bleachers stand to clap and smile.\u00a0\u00a0The music blaring from the\u00a0speakers hanging from the rafters is far too\u00a0loud, but nobody complains because this is for the kids and that’s the way they like it.\u00a0 The head coaches saunter onto the floor looking\u00a0as if this\u00a0is the most important game of the year.\u00a0 Heads down, they walk toward the bench without looking at the crowd or the teams making lay-ups.\u00a0 They’ve made this short trip from the locker room a thousand times before and\u00a0can do it in their sleep.\u00a0 While they appear calm, inside it’s “game on, baby.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Game officials stand\u00a0stoically at half-court\u00a0watching to see if anyone attempts a\u00a0pre-game dunk.\u00a0\u00a0Their\u00a0black pants are creased and their shoes are shined, their black jackets\u00a0covering\u00a0gray\u00a0short sleeve shirts with a black whistle attached to a lanyard around their necks.\u00a0 They chat among themselves as if\u00a0they know a secret no one else can be\u00a0let in on,\u00a0knowing that in less than ten minutes, they will make half the people there very unhappy with the\u00a0simplest of calls.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

When the teams retreat to their respective locker rooms, straggling spectators\u00a0filter in from the lobby.\u00a0 Everyone settles into their seats as cheerleaders begin their chants and the public address announcer warns the crowd of the consequences for unsportsmanlike conduct from\u00a0anyone in\u00a0the stands.\u00a0 Then, the teams emerge again to even louder roars of approval, ready to do battle against other kids they’ve known since the first grade.\u00a0 Everybody stands as the National Anthem is sung by four girls from the school’s glee club.\u00a0 Even people in the lobby stop, remove their hats and put their hands over their hearts in a show of patriotic respect.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A holiday\u00a0tournament gets the adrenalin flowing all around and for a couple of\u00a0hours everyone is focused on something other than shopping, napping or sitting in a tree stand.\u00a0 The gyms aren’t always inviting because they’re usually cold from having sat dormant for a few days, but wearing a winter coat or unveiling the new sweater Santa brought is just fine by you.\u00a0 Finally, too, the kids are all in one place with the family.\u00a0 It’s all good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Familiar Setting Brings People Together in a Traditional Event A great tradition in\u00a0high school basketball all across America are local Christmas and Holiday tournaments.\u00a0 Usually played\u00a0among area competition,\u00a0these two-day events give kids\u00a0a nice break from the regular season grind and offer fans the chance to see nearby teams lock horns in what could best be … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2354"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2354\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}