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Holiday tourneys have star power

But which draws more fans to a tournament, a star player or a star team?

By JOHN C. COTEY, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published December 18, 2001

Beginning tonight in Fort Myers, the No. 1 team in the country -- Los Angeles Westchester High -- will perform at the City of Palms Classic holiday basketball tournament.

Next week, the No. 1 player in the country -- Orlando's Amare Stoudemire -- will do the same at the St. Petersburg-based Hooters Holiday Shootout.

Which begs the question: If you're putting together a holiday tournament, which is best for it?

Top player, or top team?

"I'll take the top player any day of the week," said Matt Ramker, team selection chairman of the Hooters tournament.

Especially this year. Hooters landed the most talked about prep star since Allen Iverson. He plays just two hours away at Cypress Creek High in Orlando, a fact Hooters organizers hope leads to bigger crowds. But Stoudemire's star power far outweighs his place of residence.

Not only is Stoudemire, a 6-foot-10, 240-pound forward, regarded as a potential NBA lottery pick if he decides to skip college, but his off-the-court tale is one that has been retold in newspapers and magazines everywhere.

Although his tournament has eight teams that are or have been ranked nationally by national publications this season, City of Palms coordinator Donnie Wilkie thinks either the top player or the top team could lift a tournament on the way to success.

For the City of Palms Classic, it was Washington's Dunbar High School -- the first nationally ranked team the tournament attracted -- in the 1980s that Wilkie thinks set it on its way.

For Hooters, Stoudemire might be that player.

"Amare should create enough of a stir there ... you would like to think a player of that caliber will light up the tournament in every regard," Wilkie said.

"He should clearly boost attendance, and I think it can even be, in case of a tournament of that size, that one little thing."

For Ramker, his father Allyn (who helped start the tournament in 1993), Boca Ciega coaches Randy Shuman and Bob Medici and Hooters Chief Operating Officer Neil Kiefer, the search for that "one little thing" is a yearly mission.

It begins before this year's tournament even concludes. Matt Ramker has feelers out looking to fill next year's field ... and the year after that ... and even the year after that.

Ramker said that search often will focus on particular players or teams within the state, because, unlike the more lucrative City of Palms, which flies teams in, Hooters can offer each out-of-state team only five hotel rooms for five nights, two meals a day (cooked by the staff) and 20 tickets to Busch Gardens.

Some teams have slipped away to better offers, but Ramker still thinks his tournament has showcased its fair share of star players and teams.

"We are operating on a lot smaller budget but have had extreme success," he said. "I've learned the teams that I can get, and the teams that I can't get. The position we're in, we have to get them in early."

Last year is an example, when touted Major Wingate (now a junior) led his Florence (S.C.) Wilson team.

"We got him when he was a sophomore. Typically we've had success getting them when they're young," Ramker said.

In a sense, Ramker buys stock in some of the teams. When West Palm Beach Cardinal Newman agreed to come to Hooters last year, Jackie Manuel was a very good high school junior. But over the summer, he shot up recruiting charts and by December was considered one of the best seniors in the country, adding to the Hooters luster.

Sometimes, such as in Stoudemire's case, Ramker strikes gold.

Last spring, he wasn't even sure Stoudemire would be eligible to play this fall. But because he had ties to Stoudemire through AAU basketball, and because it was a chance he deemed worth taking, Ramker extended an invitation to Cypress Creek.

"We took a gamble, because we weren't sure he would be able to play," Ramker said. "But it was a chance we had to take to get on the national map.

"Stoudemire is off the charts. This is the first player we've had who has a chance to be national player of the year. If he played in New York or Los Angeles, we wouldn't be able to get him. But since he's an hour away ... "

Ramker hopes Stoudemire has the same effect on the Hooters tournament that ex-University of Florida star Teddy Dupay did in 1997. Then a senior at Cape Coral Mariner, Dupay already had created a mammoth buzz when he arrived in St. Petersburg. Over the course of the next four nights, Dupay lit up the Bayfront Arena scoreboards to the tune of 49, 44, 44 and 39 points.

That year, the Hooters Holiday Shootout transcended the typical local tournament as Dupay attracted a large following and the biggest crowds the event had seen, as well as giving the tournament some national publicity.

"We're getting a kid (Stoudemire) who, for anyone who knows anything about high school basketball, everyone knows," Ramker said. "He's been on ESPN, and the Orlando Sentinel has written more on him than on Shaq when he was there. He will be in the NBA.

"I think, collectively, our tight-knit group thought we had possibly arrived (with Dupay). But our vision one day is to have the Bayfront Center sold out, and right now, Amare is our best chance."

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