Summer prep basketball tournament suspended
Citing the loss of title sponsorship from sports shoe and apparel producer Reebok, ever-increasing facility costs and the general overall economic condition of the country, tournament officials today announced they will no longer be able produce the annual Summer Championships, the nation’s most prestigious elite boy’s prep tournament held each July in Las Vegas.
Featuring 300 teams from 44 states and three countries at its peak and 136 teams from 28 states last summer, the Reebok Summer Championships were produced in Las Vegas for the last three years by the same management team that produced the massive Big Time tournament locally from 1995 through 2006.
Building a series of summer events held annually during the special viewing period for college basketball coaches, the Summer Championships provided the template by which the National Collegiate Athletic Association developed and implemented the NCAA rules and regulations for sanctioning summer prep basketball tournaments.
"It's hard to let go of something that we all worked so hard to develop, but we have exhausted all efforts to secure the sponsorship needed to offset the loss of our sponsors and, without it, we cannot operate at the level that we developed that has become the standard for these summer prep basketball tournaments," said Jim Allen, the veteran Southern Nevada prep basketball coach who was a co-founder of the summer tournaments and director the past several years.
"We have a group of dedicated core workers of over 100 who contributed greatly to the success of these tournaments over the years and helped us to reach the stature we have, but without adequate sponsorship we cannot provide the quality experience for nearly 5,000 young athletes each year that we have and we will not produce an event if it is not up to the standards we have achieved. Because we so strongly believe in the value of this summer event and our commitment is so great, we will continue to seek sponsorship in an attempt to bring the event back in the summer of 2011."
Using as many as 24 courts at 12 high schools in Southern Nevada and headquartered at Foothill High, the tournament helped hundreds of high school athletes earn college scholarships.
