Honoring previous basketball coach Students participate in fi fth annual basketball tournament

Words by | Addi Foster

On Jan. 19, 20, and 21, Pittsburg High School hosted its fifth annual Bill Hanson Memorial Tournament.

Before it was named the Bill Hanson Memorial Tournament, PHS hosted a tournament called the Border Classic. The idea of changing the name was introduced by previous basketball coach Kiley Roelfs.

The tournament is named after Bill Hanson, a longtime PHS basketball coach who passed away.

Jeff Staley, athletic director, starts planning the tournament as early as a few weeks after the previous one ended.

“It’s a full year process,” Staley said. “For example, I have already started finding teams for next year’s tournament.”

There are a lot of different platforms that PHS uses to advertise the Bill Hanson Memorial Tournament.

“I think if you’re on social media, you saw some of the stuff on Instagram or Twitter or FaceBook,” Staley said. “We use the Joplin television station and word of mouth to promote [the tournament].”

There are a lot of differences between this year’s tournament and last year’s tournament.

“The biggest difference between this year’s tournament and the last three is we weren’t in a pandemic,” Staley said. “I know there’s still COVID, but it was nice to finally run a tournament where I didn’t have to worry about limited seating and everybody being masked up.”

Despite not being in a pandemic anymore and having the tournament go through different changes, Staley believes this year’s tournament was a success.

“From what we hear, every team that was here loved it,” Staley said. “We want to put Pittsburg, Kan. in a positive light. We want them to leave here with a positive reflection of Pittsburg, of the school, of the city, of everything.”

There are a lot of aspects about the Bill Hanson Memorial Tournament that can be favored. These aspects include getting to have different schools come to PHS, getting to watch the games, or even getting to spend time with the people in your school.

“For those three days we put our best foot forward, and I’m proud of that,” Staley said. “I’m proud to be a small part of it because it is a Herculean effort by the committee.”

Seniors Jovani Salas and Dessie Gorley have been participating in the Bill Hanson Memorial Tournament for two and three years. They both had high expectations going into the tournament.

“We didn’t have the outcome we wanted as a team, but we did get better from it,” Salas said.

During the Bill Hanson Memorial Tournament, different schools from areas such as Topeka, Kan.; Owasso, Okla,; and St. Louis, Mo. traveled down to PHS to participate. These schools typically wouldn’t play against PHS in the regular basketball season.

“I like it because it gives us more competition,” Gorley said. “We know that if we want to have a chance to win then we have to go on the court and fight for it.”