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History |
Each March, as the "Road to the
NCAA Final Four" veers to a
distant city, New York State's
best high school basketball
teams set off on a more
familiar, down home path - "The
Road to Glens Falls."
When high school basketball
players go into the gym in
November, the one city in the
state on their minds is
Glens Falls. "If we practice
and play hard as a team we'll
make it to Glens Falls for the
State Championships!"
Twenty thousand players,
coaches, parents and fans jam
the city - more than doubling
Glens Falls' population - during
tournament weekend. At the same
time, in Troy, N.Y. at Hudson
Valley Community College, New
York State's top girls high
school teams compete in their
state tournament.
Glens Falls, a quaint, 150-year
old city crouched on the Hudson
River 50 miles north of Albany,
once was best known for its
paper makers and insurance
companies. It gained national
prominence in the mid-1940's
when the old Look
magazine crowned it "Hometown
USA." At the time, the city
hosted the annual Eastern States
Basketball Tourney, one of the
earliest high school tournaments
in the country, started in 1920
and drawing thousands of fans
from around the Northeast. Now,
in addition to the high school
basketball tournaments, Glens
Falls' Civic Center is home to
the Adirondack Frostbite of the
United Hockey League.
So how come basketball - the
"big city game" - has found such
a comfortable home in little
Glens Falls, population 17,000?
"It's the overall atmosphere,"
said William Higgins, chairman
of the state wide Boys
Basketball Committee, which has
awarded Glens Falls the
tournament contract through
2008. "Glens Falls is a safe,
friendly community with
convenient, affordable
accommodations. It's centrally
located, and they have a
tremendous group of volunteers
who see to it that everything
goes off like clockwork. It's a
very positive environment."
Many of the biggest names in
college basketball and the NBA
first earned state wide acclaim
for their hardwood feats in
Glens Falls. And the city is
proud to serve as New York's
unofficial basketball capital.
City officials and business
leaders have worked hard to keep
the tournament in town.
"We think a high school
tournament and Glens Falls are a
natural match," said former
Glens Falls Mayor Francis X.
O'Keefe. "From the local
basketball coaches and officials
to the business owners,
professional people, students
and retirees, we have people of
all ages who really get involved
in this. It's a community
project. It takes team work just
like it does to win a state
championship."
Again this year volunteers from
the Chamber's Sports Promotion
Committee will run an
information booth at the
Civic Center, distributing
information on local
restaurants, stores and cultural
attractions to the more than
20,000 visitors expected for the
two weekends of the tourney.
New York had been without a high
school tournament for more than
40 years before the idea was
resurrected in Rochester in the
late '70's, said Doug Kenyon,
who is the Boys Basketball
Tournament Director
In 1981, veteran Glens Falls
High Athletic Director Bernard
"Putt" LaMay, a former NYSPHSAA
president and then the director
of the Federation Championships,
led Glens Falls' bid for and
received its first state
tournament. Glens Falls has been
awarded the three-year contracts
ever since.
"To say that we are treated well
by the City of Glens Falls is
the understatement of the year,"
said Higgins. "We have heard
nothing but positive comments
from all the participants. Glens
Falls simply knows how to run a
tournament and run it well."
For kids from the inner city who
have never been to a small town
or kids who come from small
communities who think Glens
Falls is the big city, the whole
city welcomes them with the
hospitality that Glens Falls has
displayed from all the way back
to the 1920's. People from all
over the state can identify
Glens Falls - the home of the
State High School Basketball
Championships. |
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