J's World: My farewell to the Great Alaska Shootout

Like most sports fans in Alaska, I was sad to hear the news break from UAA Thursday afternoon. The 2017 Great Alaska Shootout will be the last.

After 40 years, a holiday basketball tournament that once lured the best Division I programs in the nation will be merely a memory. Economic downfall, budget cuts and declining attendance all contributed in the decision to ax the storied event. It’s another canyon-like void to fill in Alaska sports. Just a few months since Alaska’s lone professional sports franchise, the Alaska Aces minor league hockey organization, ceased operations and sold assets. Now this.

But to me, this hits closer to home. The Great Alaska Shootout played, a small, but pivotal role of my life.

During my senior year at Palmer High School, my journalism teacher, Sandi Johnson, lined up an opportunity for me to work at the Shootout with the UAA Sports Information Department. It was far from glamorous. I spent most of my time handing out stats sheets to the writers and broadcasters along press row.

It might not have been much. But, looking back, that Thanksgiving break in 1994 was one of the most important weekends of my professional life. In those days, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do after high school. Athletics were my passion. But unfortunately I was more passionate than athletic. I’d been involved in the PHS journalism program for a few years, and even had several things published. After that weekend, I saw a way I could bring the two together.

I loved my courtside seat, and didn’t want to leave. The action on the floor, the buzz on press row. I was hooked.

After my experience at the Shootout, I knew I wanted to pursue journalism and work for an athletic department. I enrolled at UAF the following fall, got a job as a games assistant in the UAF athletics department, and by the time I was a sophomore I was a sports information assistant.

My time at UAF, as a sports information assistant and later the sports information director, allowed me to be a part of the Top of the World Classic, a tournament that followed the Great Alaska Shootout blueprint designed by UAA. It’s a tournament that drew known Division I programs, “T-shirt schools” as former UAF men’s basketball head coach Al Sokaitis used to say. Gonzaga, Arkansas, Providence, Virginia, Clemson and Mississippi State. I had the chance to meet and interact with coaches such as Steve Alford, Dan Monson, Mark Few, Nolan Richardson, Billy Tubbs, Bill Self, Pete Gillen and Clyde Drexler.

Self, who coached at Tulsa in the Top of the World Classic, led Kansas to a NCAA Division I national championship. Few, Richardson and Tubbs also coached in an NCAA title game. Drexler is an NBA legend.

The Shootout can take it a step further. There’s a laundry list of legends. In its heyday, the tourney included college basketball’s best. Duke, North Carolina, Indiana and Kansas. Danny Manning, Patrick Ewing, Glen Robinson and Tim Duncan. The best of the best once hit Anchorage each November.

But times have changed.

UAA cited the economy, the budget cuts, and drop in attendance in the decision to kill the Shootout. Don’t forget the NCAA.

College basketball’s governing body played a giant role in this tournament’s demise, just as it did in the fate of the Top of the World Classic. UAF made the decision to send its event to pasture in 2008.

UAF had the same problem UAA has faced for the last several years. In years past, the NCAA restricted the number of certified preseason basketball tournaments to 10 before 2006. But with rule changes adopted by the NCAA, that number skyrocketed. Alaska, first in Anchorage and then in Fairbanks, was once a draw. But with dozens of such tournaments now, a November stay to Alaska is less appealing to the elite programs than a weekend in Hawaii or shorter trip to a nearby location in the Lower 48.

That left UAA with tournaments full of mid-majors programs fans don’t see regularly on SportsCenter.

The end of the Shootout era will come in November with Cal Poly, Cal State Bakersfield, Central Michigan, College of Charleston, Idaho, Sam Houston State, Santa Clara and the host Seawolves in the final field. I’m sad to see the Shootout go, thankful for the memories and fortunate for that Thanksgiving weekend in 1994.

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.