Expanding boys all-star festivities a ‘no-brainer’
Paul Eberhardt is a big believer in high school boys basketball playing all four provincial championships together and has adopted that mindset for Saturday’s yearend all-star game.
Eberhardt, the longtime Richmond league coach who is also president of the B.C. High School Boys Basketball Association, is spearheading the annual showcase day by having two games instead of the usual one this year in a bid to get more players involved.
R.C. Palmer, Eberhardt’s longtime home school after a successful stint at crosstown rival McNair, will host the single-A all-stars against their double-A counterparts at 5 p.m. and then have the quad-A side face the triple-A players at 7:30 p.m.
There’s a three-point contest and a slam-dunk competition set to go between the two games.
For decades, the provincials were played at various sites with the triple-A event at the Agrodome receiving the majority of the attention. The boys, along with the girls, eventually shifted their B.C. championships to the Langley Events Centre. The boys rebuilt their tier system for 2013-14, adding a quad-A level at the top, and its provincials joined the others at the multi-purpose complex in the Fraser Valley that spring.
“I think going with all four of our tournaments at one venue has helped raise the profile of some of the smaller schools and given those students a greater opportunity to have a little bit of the limelight,” explained Eberhardt. “I think it has helped some of those teams in the other tiers develop their programs.
“There was always a concern under the old format that players may look to find ways to transfer to a team in the top tier. Now the coaches and players from all the tiers can see that you’re going to get the same opportunity to be showcased.”
With more players and more teams participating across the province and the various districts changing their structures to add more senior high schools, there’s debate about whether we will ever see the same type of juggernaut teams we saw before.
For instance, the 1988 Richmond Colts, led by the likes of Ron Putzi and Brian Tait, are commonly considered the best team of all-time. The district had three senior high schools then and it has 10 now.
“I think going to four tiers and having four provincial championships at one site has been good for the game overall, though,” Eberhardt chimed in. “It’s given more teams a chance to compete for a championship and be competitive and feel good about what they’re trying to do. We had been struggling to get coaches and teacher/ coaches especially. There’s more pressure on teachers in the system than ever before. I think we were on the verge of losing some programs, having them fold up.
“There’s more opportunities now. It’s a little more exciting for people. There’s more teams in the mix for longer.”
And what does he like about Saturday?
“It’s just exciting,” he said. “We had talked about taking it over in a bigger way for some time. I think the last slam-dunk contest was 2009. I think the last three-point contest was 2013. We’re just following the NBA model and make a whole day of it with the slamdunk and three-point preliminaries before the first game starts.
“It was a no-brainer for us. More kids selected. More opportunities.”