Apr 5, 2015 5 min read

A referee threw the basketball high for the opening tip and, within moments, it quickly worked its way to Dylan Dhans, a 6-foot senior guard from Burgettstown High School.

Dhans, one of the better players in Section 3-AA during the 2014-15 high school basketball season, dribbled toward center court. A few steps after crossing the midcourt line, a defender met up with him. As eight other basketball players scrambled near and toward the basket at Washington High School’s gymnasium, site of the second day of tryouts for the annual Washington-Greene All-Star game, Dhans gave a quick fake toward his left, switched hands on the dribble, burst right and blew by his defender on his way toward the basket.

Dhans elevated and took a contested shot as the defeated defender, feeling the sting of being beaten on the dribble at the start of a scrimmage, headed toward the mass of bodies, hoping for a long rebound.

Normally, when a defender playing for a team coached by legendary Wash High boys basketball coach Ron Faust gets beaten that badly, the hook is coming and a seat on the bench is in the immediate future.

These, however, weren’t normal circumstances.

For starters, tryouts for the all-star game, which took place March 27, aren’t as intense as regular-season practice, no matter how hard the 20-some hopeful participants are trying to impress the attending coaches in hopes of a roster spot. Secondly, that beaten defender wasn’t a high school senior or even someone who played high school basketball.

That defender, wearing a red No. 6 practice jersey, was a vertically challenged, physically overmatched 40-year-old who covered the local basketball scene from 1999 to 2012.

Fortunately, I had no delusions of athletic adequacy before agreeing to take part in the tryouts. Basically, the goal was to avoid embarrassing myself against the area’s best senior high school basketball players.

“Be very careful,” advised Eugene Briggs, head boys basketball coach at Chartiers-Houston and one of the event’s primary organizers along with former Peters Township boys coach Rick Stellfox.

Briggs called the group of auditioning players “fast,” and I found out quickly, but not before a seemingly endless layup line that exacted a small toll on my endurance. So, Dhans immediately beat me off the dribble, and there were a few other curious moments. I passed up open jumpers, missed an opportunity to drive toward the basket and must have looked old when displaying a four-inch vertical leap. The pace seemed hectic, far faster than how it appeared for years while sitting a row behind the scorer’s table at Wash High gymnasium for countless Prexies basketball games.

After a few minutes, Faust subbed me out and I headed toward the bench with Waynesburg senior Dom Sarra, one of the area’s leading scorers this past season.

“So, how terrible did I look out there?” I asked Sarra.

“Not too bad. I wouldn’t say you looked terrible,” he said.

“But not good, right?”

“Well, you’re in good shape for a 40-year-old,” Sarra said.

I’ll take the compliment, not that any were deserved. Final stats: no points, assists, rebounds or steals. Luckily, no one was tracking poor defense.

Stellfox put a more accurate spin on my performance.

“You didn’t shoot, and you didn’t pass that well either,” Stellfox said.

There was plenty of scoring and passing in Friday’s game, which was coached by Jefferson-Morgan’s Dennis Garrett and Burgettstown’s Rich Tranquil. The White Team defeated the Red Team, 118-85, behind an MVP performance from Alec Ferrari of Chartiers-Houston. Sarra earned MVP honors for the Red Team.

The game originated 30 years ago, a joint venture of the Observer-Reporter and Washington-Greene Coaches Association.

“After the Observer-Reporter dropped sponsorship, it almost cost us the game. Fortunately, we quickly found another sponsor,” said Stellfox, who has been around the showcase since its beginning.

Rotary Club of Washington took over sponsorship, and the game continued its initial purposes.

“The primary benefit is having a good time, and it’s a good chances for the coaches to get to know other kids,” said Briggs, who has been a part of organizing the game for the last 15 years.

Players get equal playing time. There’s no zone defense.

And there’s an added benefit to the players who make the final cut.

“We encourage as many college coaches as possible to attend, and many of them do,” Stellfox said. “Every year, you see two to five kids who end up on a college team, partly because of how they played in this game.”