Mike Mosley looks out over the eight basketball courts at the Rocky Mount Event Center and sees all but one of them filled with players from high schools east of Interstate 95 showcasing their skills in front of hundreds of fans.
The other court has players warming up, waiting to play.
Mosley, the SouthWest Edgecombe varsity boys coach, smiles.
“My goal when we started this four years ago was to give high school basketball teams east of I-95 a really nice place to play,” he said. “I thought that was the goal, and to just try and get teams to come here.”
Since its inception, the annual High School Basketball Jamboree’s field has increased each year: last year it had 40 teams, the year before, 22. The year before that, 16.
This year, 56 teams took the courts at the RMEC over two days (June 25-26) in a modern-day hoops version of baseball’s ‘Field of Dreams.’
Mosley is eyeing a bigger field in 2025.
“I think, from talking to some of our coaches earlier, is that 64 is the sweet spot,” he said. “If we can get 32 varsity boys teams, 16 girls teams and 16 junior varsity teams, those would be really good numbers.”
Mosley said he is not altogether surprised that the field has increased.
“I think word of mouth has gotten around and people are sharing what a good experience it is here,” Mosley said. “It really helps that the Event Center staff is really good to work with and they have done a real good job of making this a nice event. The (Rocky Mount) Parks and Recreation Department (the host for the event) has also done well is making the schedule, making sure teams that were coming from farther away were accommodated.”
Teams came from near and far to play at the Event Center, a 165,000-square-foot facility which opened in 2018. Local teams from Rocky Mount (3.8 miles away), Northern Nash (9.6 miles), SWE (12.3 miles), North Edgecombe (13.5 miles), Nash Central (9.8 miles), Tarboro (16.5 miles) and Southern Nash (26.1 miles) were among the closest to attend.
A majority of the schools that played were inside 90 minutes from the venue, but some other schools (Camden at 115 miles, Eden Morehead at 163 miles, Red Springs at 123 miles), Jacksonville/Cape Fear (97 miles), Pine Forest (95 miles) and Lakewood (94.5 miles) were arriving from farther away.
The month of June has become a pivotal one in the past several years for high school basketball coaches who want to get a jump on their upcoming seasons. With AAU basketball gaining more and more popularity in recent years, high school coaches have had to get creative in terms of talent evaluation.
Gone are the days where two days in early November is enough time to hold enough tryouts to develop a team, and that’s if a school didn’t have to wait on football players. For those schools who may have to wait on those football players, the summer is a chance to further develop their existing talent (including football players) by augmenting summer workouts with summer leagues and jamborees.
“The attractive part is we play during the week,” Mosley said. “Coaches like to have weekends off during the summer. The other good thing is that JV teams can play here. Some events like this during the summer don’t have JV teams. Those things are attractive for coaches.”
The jamboree gives teams a chance to evaluate personnel, react to different styles and levels of competition and develop team chemistry.
Pam Gainey, the girls coach at Rocky Mount, likes playing in the event.
“This absolutely helps us, being local and staying home instead of traveling, because lots of times getting together to go somewhere else to play is stressful in itself,” she said. “I enjoy it, and the kids’ parents can watch their kids play without a lot of hassle. The size of the venue also helps because not everybody plays AAU and they can see the bigger picture.”
With the status and return of her two leading scorers and rebounders (Kira Jones and McKinley Battle) up in the air as they continue to rehab ACL injuries, Gainey is trying to get her returning players and newcomers to be confident in themselves and their abilities so the Gryphons can be even stronger if Jones and Battle are able to return.
Mike Gainey (Pam’s husband), the Rocky Mount boys coach, didn’t have a team in the field last year because of low numbers.
“We are in the middle of rebuilding,” he said. “This year, our goal (in this event) is retention on what we’re supposed to be doing. I don’t care whether we win or lose; that’s not what’s it’s about for me. I want to see if our guys can jell together and work together under one common bond. Out of 16 players out there, do I have enough to choose from in order to be successful this season? We will be competitive and work hard though; no matter what we do, you will know Rocky Mount’s been in the house.”
Tevin Boykin is the second-year girls coach at Southern Nash.
“Our girls are young and don’t have a lot of opportunities to play outside of school ball, so this a good opportunity for us to come together and work on team ball, bonding and finding out what it is we need to work on,” he said. “Our schedule is always with big schools, so when we come to this event, it gives us a preview of what we have to see before we get to conference play.”
For one of Boykin’s players, Terri Richardson, it’s a chance for she and her teammates to further hone their skills.
“This year, for myself, I want to improve my shot and have everybody move around (on offense) so they can get their shots too,” she said. “We need to work on that.”
Reggie Bess, the boys coach at Tarboro, has taken his teams to this event every year.
“I like the competition to see where we are as a team,” he said. “We are trying to work on our defense and we focused a lot on full-court pressure defense in our first game (an 18-point win over Lakewood).
“We are not the biggest team, so my goal in this event is to use the speed and athleticism we have to get the ball up and down the court offensively and have our pressure defense create opportunities for the offense.”
Mosley said his boys team at SWE looks to be pretty good at first glance.
“From appearances sake, it looks like we’re going to have a pretty good team, but we talk to our players about arriving and appearances,” he said. “The arriving part means we have to be disciplined and do things the right way all the time.”
Mosley said that while his Cougars are a 2A program, he asked to “play up” (against bigger schools such as 3A and 4A).
“Nothing against the 1A and 2A schools, but we wanted to be tested to see what we have to work on. We need to see more athletes, and some teams will have athletes at every position. We need to understand how to play against them as well as other styles,” he noted.
Pam Gainey agreed with Mosley’s assessment of seeing other talent. Her Gryphons played Wakefield first.
“The Raleigh schools play man-to-man and switch out of that man a lot more, which makes things not as predictable as opposed to when we play some of the same teams locally,” she said.
Nash Central girls coach Terri Cash was pleased with the efforts of her team, which won all three of its games played on the first day against squads from Cape Fear, Pine Forest and West Johnston.
“We didn’t have Cameron (Fate, who last season established a new team rebounding record) and Alanna (Moore), had rising eighth-graders playing and we were playing without Lydia (Hill) and Nataiya (Lane, both graduated seniors) for the first time,” she said.
Cash did have one concern when it came to the field of teams.
“I do think there has to be a decision made on what teams are allowed to play,” she said. “There was a team here that was not a high school team, they were an AAU team. I know a child who is on that team. If that is the situation, are we going to let high school teams play or let AAU teams play, but it is different — you are choosing your team in AAU where you’re not necessarily choosing them in high schools.”
Cash did like the fact that the jamboree gives girls a chance to showcase their skills.
“I think any male can go to any gym or park and get run. If you are a female, you can’t walk into that scenario and easily have that respect or have somebody pick you up and say, ‘You can run with me.’
“So by having this event you are allowing girls to come in and play in an environment that’s safe,” she said.
Like many schools, Northern Nash boys coach Henry Drake uses the jamboree to evaluate his players and see different styles of play.
“I get here early and evaluate other teams,” said Drake, whose Knights participated in their third event. “It also gives me a chance to look at my team: the positions/players we lost versus what we are gaining. It’s good competition and gives us a chance to see what our young kids can do.”
For SWE girls coach Sandra Langley, team chemistry is important.
“I like for them to build chemistry during the summer and it gives us a chance to see what’s coming up for next year,” she said. “A lot of times the summer shows me who is the most committed and who really wants to play, but I think building team chemistry is the most important thing during the offseason. That’s what we hope to get out of it.”
For returner Deniya Mayo, she wants to use the event to develop her leadership skills.
“I want to be a leader on the court,” she said.
For David Joyner, who has served as the general manager at the Event Center since December of 2019, the basketball jamboree — much like every other event held at the Event Center — is all about creating the best experience possible for everyone involved.
“There is a lot of planning and logistics with something like this,” he said. “We have a phenomenal team who try to model ourselves around what we need to do to cater to the people and really provide great customer service, which is always number one. Our staff is on it: They work extremely hard, pay attention to details and they treat every player and coach like they’re a guest. That’s the real differential for us, and the city supports us to make sure things outside (the venue) get done.”
Joyner continued: “We want people to have a good impression of when they come to Rocky Mount. Our whole methodology is when they come in here, we owe it to them to give them the best experience they can have. From what we hear a lot, they are used to going to a gym and the number one compliment we get is how clean the bathrooms are, and that lets us know that we are catering to them in a way that they love and appreciate. That has a direct correlation to what the teams and coaches are saying because they like coming here.”
Joyner also said a conversation with UNC-Chapel Hill Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham helped him augment the event by getting feedback from the coaches.
“Adding the coaches’ perception was a really smart move that we made,” he said. “We are giving them that little extra service, such as a hospitality room, that they are not getting in other cities. That’s something we strategically do to make us competitively in a different bracket.”
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