11th Trojan Classic will include a tournament for girls
Written by Don Ratzlaff
Tuesday, 04 January 2005
In its 11th year, the Trojan Classic basketball tournament, planned for Jan. 17-22, has upped the ante for tough competition-in more ways than one.
The way most visible to fans will be the addition of a girls' division to what has been an all-boys tournament during the Classic's first 10 years.
Teams from Belleville, Cair-Paravel-Latin School in Topeka, Marion, Riley County and Wamego will join the Trojan girls for a six-team, pool-format tournament.
The boys' division became more competitive, too. The Classic will return to an eight-team field after settling for a six-team field a year ago.
Belleville, Hesston, Marion, Riley County, Sunrise Christian Academy, Thomas More Prep and Wamego will join Hillsboro in a traditional championship-bracket format.
Adding a girls' tournament and returning to eight teams on the boys' side are related to a third, equally fierce but behind-the-scenes competition among Kansas high schools:
Finding teams to fill their mid-season tournaments.
"It's a nasty deal, tournaments," said Max Heinrichs, Hillsboro High School activities director and the man in charge of the the Trojan Classic.
"I found that out my first year when two teams left (the Classic). They tell you the day after they're done, and what do you do? There's nobody to get."
Creating a girls' tournament was key to fulfilling two desires, Heinrichs said.
"First, we wanted to have our girls at home and have a girls' tournament," he said. "The second part of it was, we were struggling to find teams to play in our boys' tournament because of the high level of play it's always had."
Traditionally in Kansas, the third week of January has been designated for boys' tournaments while the following week has been designated for girls' tournaments.
Heinrichs said in recent years schools have become increasingly interested in finding a tournament that offers simultaneous competition for both teams.
"It does give you scheduling advantages for that week after," Heinrichs said.
Belleville is a case in point. A traditional member of the boys' tournament, Belleville was planning to pull out. But when Heinrichs raised the possibility of having a tournament for boys and girls, school officials reconsidered.
"After thinking about having both teams play the same week...they decided they would come," Heinrichs said.
In this first year of having separate tournaments, Heinrichs wasn't able to find eight team for the girls' side-mostly because schools that wanted to bring both of their teams felt badly about abruptly leaving the tournaments where their girls had been competing.
Heinrichs said he has felt his share of angst about pulling teams from other sites.
"The thing that probably hurt me more than anything has been that several of the (girls') teams that are coming are the same teams that go to the Minneapolis tournament-and I don't want to destroy their tournament because it's 30 years old," he said.
But Heinrichs said he needed to be aggressive if Hillsboro wanted to continue to host a viable tournament.
"You have to understand-this is about all I dream about because it's a big deal to this community," Heinrichs said.
In this inaugural year, finding teams for even a six-team girls' tournament has been a challenge, he added.
"There was nobody who was a member of the (Kansas State High School Activities Association) that I could get," he said.
After coming up empty in Nebraska and Oklahoma, too, Heinrichs found Cair Paravel, a private institution that is not a member of the KSHSAA but is approved by the organization for scheduling purposes.
"They're a pretty salty team, so we'll see what happens," Heinrichs said.
Sunrise Christian Academy, which has been part of the boys' tournament for several years, is another example of an approved, but non-member, school.
With a year for other schools to soften the transition, Heinrichs is confident the Trojan Classic will field eight teams for both boys and girls in 2006.
"We feel pretty comfortable about filling the tournament for next year," he said.
Logistical challenges
By essentially doubling the size of the Trojan Classic, the logistical challenges have multiplied, too.
Sharing court space at the high school and Tabor College gyms would have been an ideal arrangement, but scheduling conflicts precluded that possibility for this year.
Heinrichs said he is grateful to Marion High School and its activities director, Tod Gordon, for coming on board as a second host.
"Marion's been a good partner and I really enjoy working with Tod," Heinrichs said.
Marion will play host to three games for sure, and possibly one or two more, depending on how the teams fare.
The three-team pool that includes the Marion girls will play its games at the Marion gym.
Hillsboro, meanwhile, will host all of the other games-unless it makes scheduling sense for the Marion boys to play host to a game in order to accommodate the needs of its opponent.
"Marion didn't have a problem with their boys coming here because they're used to coming here," Heinrichs said.
"In our thinking, we didn't want any of our Hillsboro teams to play away from home," he added. "That's one of the things the Booster Club really wanted."
Since the Trojan Classic was launched, the Trojan Booster Club has helped organize and run the tournament. Heinrichs said the involvement of members this year has been particularly critical-and excellent.
"They've worked pretty hard at this," he said. "We've got great people who really get things done."
His core team of assistants includes Autumn Chisholm, Kirby Fadenrecht, Steve Hughbanks and Randy Whisenhunt. They oversee numerous tasks, including selling ads for the tournament program, recruiting a local host for each team, selling tickets at the gate and organizing a hospitality room.
And now the booster club at Marion will do the same at its home site.
"I want to thank the Marion booster club for being an integral part of this," Heinrichs said. "They've been so willing to take on the challenges."
Heinrichs said the tournament may generate some revenue for both schools, but the intent of organizers has always been to make the tournament a highlight for participants.
As a result, most of the proceeds from the gate are invested in the players-from supplying T-shirts to some 320 kids to adding various other extras to make the tournament more interesting.
This year, Heinrichs said, an HHS technology class will video highlights of each game and then replay in the school commons the following night. Each team will receive a DVD of its highlights as a keepsake.
Heinrichs said he hopes MCTV in Marion will be able to provide a video link so teams playing at one site can monitor what's happening at the other one.
Heinrichs also hopes to initiate an Internet statistical program that can keep fans updated at home if they can't make the trip to Hillsboro.
"We're trying to make it as big a deal as we can for these kids," he said. "I think they'll like it and appreciate it."
Pairings and scheduling
The only scheduling certainty is that Marion girls will play their pool games on their home floor and that Hillsboro's two teams will play at Brown Gymnasium.
Almost everything else related to scheduling is still up in the air, Heinrichs said.
Actual pairings and games times won't be finalized until after Jan. 10. Seeding for both tournaments will be based on won-loss records as of that date, Heinrichs said.
Once the teams are seeded, game times will be negotiated according to what works best for the home teams and the teams that have to travel the farthest to get to Hillsboro.
However that works out, Heinrichs said basketball fans will see some very competitive games again this season. He said five of the eight schools in the boys' tournament and four of the six schools in the girls' tournament were state ranked at the start of the season.
"You could easily lose that first-round game and end up playing for fifth," he said. "That might be the best you can do-win two and lose one and play for fifth.
"It's going to be a tough tournament."
