Basketball Tournaments Are Always in Season for BYF
BY JOHN BURBRIDGE
jburbridge@nwitimes.com
HAMMOND | Whether the weather outside is frightful or not, basketball is always in season for the Baylor Youth Foundation.
The weekend of Dec. 14-16 was plagued with the first major snowfall of the season. But it didn't whiteout BYF's annual Holiday Classic Tournament for boys 10-and-under, 12-and-under and 14-and-under teams held at the Jean Shepherd Center.
"We only have one team drop out," said organizer Toi Baylor, whose tourney attracted 25 teams from at least three different states.
One team making the long haul was the Wisconsin Gators based from Milwaukee. They faced Baylor Youth Foundation's 14-and-under team in the championship game.
Some clutch free throw shooting in the final seconds enabled BYF to pull off a 43-42 win.
It was the final tournament of 2007 hosted by BYF. The foundation's tournament schedule for 2008 include AAU National Boys Super Regional Championship qualifiers on March 7-8 and May 24-25, AAU National Girls Super Regional Championship qualifier on April 4-6, Northwest Indiana Boys and Girls Tournament on June 6-8, NCAA D-1 Boys and Girls Tournament on July 11-13, and One-Day AAU Boys and Girls Tournaments on Aug. 2, 9 and 16.
All aforementioned tournaments will take place at the Lincoln Center in Highland. The foundation will hold a Junior All-American Regional Camp on March 1-2 at the Jean Shepherd Center, which is the home of the BYF AAU Basketball League, which runs through February.
Baylor, a physical education teacher, founded the Baylor Youth Foundation in March of 2001. Many of players from her original "Baylor Ballers" basketball team are regional senior high school stars with serious aspirations of continuing their careers with Division One collegiate programs.
"Helping players get scholarships is one of our main goals," Baylor said.
* For more information about the Baylor Youth Foundation, go to bayloryouth.org.
1/28/2009 12:00:00 AM
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