Pasadena Citizen - Sports
Resilient Invitational produces glowing numbers
By ROBERT AVERY
In the one month since the McDonald’s Texas Invitational high school basketball tournament finished its three-day run here in town, the tournament’s steering committee has received 43 e-mails from coaches expressing their comments on the event.
From those electronic messages, coaches have used the word “great” 15 times, the word “love” was found in 11 of the messages, while “awesome” and “elated” were two of the other more popular choices in describing their experience and the desire to return.
They also routinely mentioned the hospitality that was shown their respective squads from volunteers working the tournament.
So when the steering committee met this past Thursday afternoon at the Chamber of Commerce offices, the first get-together since the tournament, they were the recipients of a glowing report from Chairman Ben Meador.
From tournament records where numerous ones were thrown out the window to suspenseful contests, including the Boys’ Gold Division championship game and greater attendance, it all added up to a tournament that was unparalleled for its overall success.
“We know it (the attendance) was up,” Meador said Friday. “The Thursday numbers were probably at least 20 percent more than last year. The ones I went to you could tell that there were a lot more fans. I think our publicity was vastly improved over previous times. Mark Kramer did a great job of promoting that.”
Dubbed “A Monumental Event” by those promoting the tourney, it likely did set an attendance record.
“We feel like it’s in the neighborhood of 32 to 35,000 compared to times past when we know we had around 30,000,” Meador continued. “Our attendance was up. Our ticket sales were up. When you look at the numbers, it’s really hard to get a feel because people buy tournament passes and that’s just one ticket.”
The tournament always reaches a crescendo with its Boys’ Gold Division title game and fans near and far gladly took it in again to see San Antonio Madison upset nationally-ranked Duncanville in overtime.
“It couldn’t have been scripted any better,” Meador said.
Just two months after Hurricane Ike’s direct hit on the area plus the downturn of the economy, it had all the potential to serve as a double whammy on the tournament. But the event, with its 80 teams and eight venue sites, proved resilient.
So resilient that there will be another fat check waiting to be presented to the Pasadena Education Foundation in the PISD administration building on Jan. 21.
“I feel very confident that we’ll exceed the donation that we made last year,” Meador said.
Off the court, Meador spotlighted such statistics as the 68 sponsors who helped make this year’s event a financial boon, 15 sponsors more than the 2007 event. It added up to a whopping $144,000 in contributions from those sponsors.
On the court, six records were broken and four were tied. The pages in the girls’ record book came away from the tourney torn and shredded. Five new records were set and three more were tied. Doing most of the shredding was North Shore High School’s Lauren Flores, who single-handedly broke four records, while her club set a new team mark for most free throws made in the three days.
Flores now owns single-game records for most points scored (41) and field goals (14) as well as records for most points scored over the entire tournament (116) and free throws (48). Pasadena Memorial’s Jessica Gonzalez became the fourth girl in the tourney’s history to sink six 3s in a single game, the high mark for that category.
There was just one boys’ record set and that went to tournament champion San Antonio Madison sinking 31 free throws in a single game.
It was also noted that in the course of playing 183 games, the final points count reached 19,094 and the average points scored per team was 52.2. In the boys division, the average was 55.8 after 13,287 points were netted and 45.4 for the ladies after 5,807 points were accumulated.
“A lot of these people don’t get credit they really deserve. We couldn’t do the tournament without Bob Ellis and Wayne Adams. Those two guys, people don’t realize how hard they work on this thing,” said Meador, also praising the efforts of Darla Haygood, the tournament’s volunteer organizer.
In looking down the road to 2009, there was talk about the tourney field growing even more, but Meador said they’re going to stay put at 80 teams. Meador has been notified that the Alvin boys team has elected not to return next year and neither will the Pflugerville High girls. Bellaire is expected to replace Pflugerville.
Meador would dearly love to add another high school with national ranking credentials like Duncanville. But the committee will also review its list of all out-of-town teams because the tournament’s lodging bill of $30,700 was its greatest expense. Meador wants his traveling squads to be among the best of the best, therefore producing more bang for the buck.
After seeing what kind of success and fun the tournament can deliver to his hometown in a year when a hurricane tried to derail it and the economy is so sour, Meador believes the sky now really is the limit for the McDonald’s Texas Invitational.
“This thing has a life of its own,” Meador said.
From those electronic messages, coaches have used the word “great” 15 times, the word “love” was found in 11 of the messages, while “awesome” and “elated” were two of the other more popular choices in describing their experience and the desire to return.
They also routinely mentioned the hospitality that was shown their respective squads from volunteers working the tournament.
So when the steering committee met this past Thursday afternoon at the Chamber of Commerce offices, the first get-together since the tournament, they were the recipients of a glowing report from Chairman Ben Meador.
From tournament records where numerous ones were thrown out the window to suspenseful contests, including the Boys’ Gold Division championship game and greater attendance, it all added up to a tournament that was unparalleled for its overall success.
“We know it (the attendance) was up,” Meador said Friday. “The Thursday numbers were probably at least 20 percent more than last year. The ones I went to you could tell that there were a lot more fans. I think our publicity was vastly improved over previous times. Mark Kramer did a great job of promoting that.”
Dubbed “A Monumental Event” by those promoting the tourney, it likely did set an attendance record.
“We feel like it’s in the neighborhood of 32 to 35,000 compared to times past when we know we had around 30,000,” Meador continued. “Our attendance was up. Our ticket sales were up. When you look at the numbers, it’s really hard to get a feel because people buy tournament passes and that’s just one ticket.”
The tournament always reaches a crescendo with its Boys’ Gold Division title game and fans near and far gladly took it in again to see San Antonio Madison upset nationally-ranked Duncanville in overtime.
“It couldn’t have been scripted any better,” Meador said.
Just two months after Hurricane Ike’s direct hit on the area plus the downturn of the economy, it had all the potential to serve as a double whammy on the tournament. But the event, with its 80 teams and eight venue sites, proved resilient.
So resilient that there will be another fat check waiting to be presented to the Pasadena Education Foundation in the PISD administration building on Jan. 21.
“I feel very confident that we’ll exceed the donation that we made last year,” Meador said.
Off the court, Meador spotlighted such statistics as the 68 sponsors who helped make this year’s event a financial boon, 15 sponsors more than the 2007 event. It added up to a whopping $144,000 in contributions from those sponsors.
On the court, six records were broken and four were tied. The pages in the girls’ record book came away from the tourney torn and shredded. Five new records were set and three more were tied. Doing most of the shredding was North Shore High School’s Lauren Flores, who single-handedly broke four records, while her club set a new team mark for most free throws made in the three days.
Flores now owns single-game records for most points scored (41) and field goals (14) as well as records for most points scored over the entire tournament (116) and free throws (48). Pasadena Memorial’s Jessica Gonzalez became the fourth girl in the tourney’s history to sink six 3s in a single game, the high mark for that category.
There was just one boys’ record set and that went to tournament champion San Antonio Madison sinking 31 free throws in a single game.
It was also noted that in the course of playing 183 games, the final points count reached 19,094 and the average points scored per team was 52.2. In the boys division, the average was 55.8 after 13,287 points were netted and 45.4 for the ladies after 5,807 points were accumulated.
“A lot of these people don’t get credit they really deserve. We couldn’t do the tournament without Bob Ellis and Wayne Adams. Those two guys, people don’t realize how hard they work on this thing,” said Meador, also praising the efforts of Darla Haygood, the tournament’s volunteer organizer.
In looking down the road to 2009, there was talk about the tourney field growing even more, but Meador said they’re going to stay put at 80 teams. Meador has been notified that the Alvin boys team has elected not to return next year and neither will the Pflugerville High girls. Bellaire is expected to replace Pflugerville.
Meador would dearly love to add another high school with national ranking credentials like Duncanville. But the committee will also review its list of all out-of-town teams because the tournament’s lodging bill of $30,700 was its greatest expense. Meador wants his traveling squads to be among the best of the best, therefore producing more bang for the buck.
After seeing what kind of success and fun the tournament can deliver to his hometown in a year when a hurricane tried to derail it and the economy is so sour, Meador believes the sky now really is the limit for the McDonald’s Texas Invitational.
“This thing has a life of its own,” Meador said.
Copyright © 2009 - Houston Community Newspapers Online