COLUMBUS — Some of the best youth basketball teams in the South descended on Columbus and New Hope last weekend for the FLY and STY “Hustle” Amateur Athletic Union basketball tournament.
“We had a good weekend,” FLY coach and tournament assistant director Shelly McElveen said. “The competition was great and we had several top teams from across the state show their talent. Boys and girls who showed a lot of potential to maybe play at the next level.”
The local FLY Girls and STY Boys basketball teams found a lot of success over the weekend, taking home five championships across the nine competitive divisions. The boys won titles in the eighth and ninth grade groups while the girls won the high school age group as well as the seventh and eighth grade groups.
“What’s unfortunate is I didn’t get to watch all of the teams, being the director,” STY coach Donel Briggs said after a weekend that saw him constantly moving between facilities to keep things going. “I was always on the move, but overall our teams competed well. There were tough teams in the tournament and it was exciting to watch them compete and come out with some championship wins. Whether you win or lose I always try to encourage the boys and any ballplayer that it’s only a loss if you look at it as a loss. If you look at every opportunity, game, or practice as how you can gain something from it then there’s no way you can lose.”
McElveen and Briggs served as the primary tournament directors as well as coaches for their own teams. The weekend saw nearly 100 teams from across the Mississippi and the Southeast compete at gyms in Columbus and New Hope.
The two organizations also brought in guest speaker Jarvis Gunter, a former Falcon and NBA G-League player who now coaches at the DME Academy, a private academy in Daytona Beach, Florida, that focuses on developing basketball talent.
The tournament came together thanks to several vendors and the help of the Falcons’ and Trojans’ basketball programs opening the facilities and concession stands. The two organizations’ cooperation to host a joint tournament bore a very successful tournament that could be built upon in the future.
“Both organizations just came together,” Briggs said. “We relied a lot on the staff, the coaches, and the parents who helped with the planning. We were blessed to receive a donation from the Columbus Visit(ors) Bureau, but other than that it was the organizations coming together to make it a success.”
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