Budd Grebb League set for a summer of outdoor basketball
Another summer of outdoor basketball is about to get underway in the Mon Valley.
The annual Budd Grebb League is set to begin on Monday at the Mechanic Street Playground in California and increased participation has league commissioner Damani Stafford excited for a new season.
The season kicks off Monday with two girls games. The first one tips at 6:30 p.m.
The first boys games of the new season are on Tuesday.
Girls games will be played Monday and Wednesday and boys games Tuesday and Thursday.
Stafford is in his second year as the commissioner of the Budd Grebb League and said it has grown with around 80 boys signed up and 40 girls.
“Our numbers have grown a lot since last year,” Stafford said. “We had around 55 boys last year and at the draft we had there were close to 80. There’s a lot of talent coming here and its from all over the area. We’re excited. The girls side has also grown. We probably got seven new players for the girls league, which is good.”
Some of the top players on the boys side include Markus McGowan, who led Jeannette to an appearance in the WPIAL Class 2A championship, Belle Vernon’s Elijah Majors and Ringgold’s David Wachinsky.
On the girls side, Brownsville’s Ava Clark and Beth-Center’s Violet Trump are a pair of 1,000-point scorers in high school that are playing in the league.
After taking over the league two weeks before the season began last year, Stafford had a little more of a headstart to plan and get the word out for this summer.
“We started right after Christmas and New Year’s,” Stafford said. “Right after those holidays were over, I reached out to 60-plus athletic directors in our area via email to spread the word and try to get more kids out. Some kids that played in the league last year brought their friends along for this summer.”
There are six boys teams and four girls teams, the same number as last year, but there will be more players on each roster. Stafford said they debated adding a couple boys teams, but decided that it’d be best to keep it at six and just have bigger rosters.
Bentworth coach Bob Kennedy will once again coach a team in the Budd Grebb League. Former Brownsville coach and former PennWest California player Rob Ramsey and Frazier girls coach Jonathan Bass are among the others coaching boys teams.
Beth-Center coach Elizabeth Trump, Rakiyah Porter and Ca’mari Walden and Kendall Shaporka will coach the girls teams.
One issue that the Budd Grebb League had last year was finding a permanent home to move games indoors in the event of inclement weather.
That has been resolved.
All games needed to be moved inside will be played at California Area Elementary School in Coal Center.
“That was one of the huge things that we faced last year, we really didn’t know where we were going to go if it was raining,” Stafford said. “It was difficult to get on a school board’s agenda that late into the summer. We played at Beth-Center and the Civic Center in Monessen, but we felt that moving around wasn’t ideal for the kids. I was able to get on an agenda at the California school board early enough this year to get approved. If we do get bad weather, we’re able to play at California Area Elementary School.”
A new addition this year is a youth league. Stafford said there’s boys and girls from second to seventh grade that have signed up. He estimated around 50 players have signed up and credited Brownsville boys basketball coach Joe Hough with helping get the youth league off the ground.
The championship night will be held on Saturday July 25. Like last year, the plan is to have a block party-type celebration for the final night.
“We did it last year on a Friday and we felt that it was a little tough for people that work to get down there for it,” Stafford said. “A lot of people want to bring their kids down, so we decided to move it to the weekend and hopefully our numbers will grow. We’re still working on finalizing everything, but we’ll have a lot of interesting things planned for it.”