28 Years Later, Christmas Classic Still Going Strong

The year was 1983. Word was going around that Southern Regional High School was about to discontinue its Roundball Festival, an annual boys basketball tournament held during the Christmas break that featured eight boys basketball teams from Monmouth and Ocean counties.

Kevin Williams didn’t want to see it go away.

“Jim Ruhnke had been running the tournament for a while,” said Williams, director of the Shore Sports Network for Townsquare Media, the owner of WOBM FM and AM. “The burden was on the Southern staff, and it had become too much.”

Then one day early in 1984, Williams said, he heard about a meeting about the fate of the Roundball Festival.

“I got wind of it and got myself invited,” he said. And it wasn’t long after that the WOBM Christmas Classic was born.

This weekend, the WOBM Christmas Classic tips off for the 28th time, with the opening round of the 16-team boys tournament on Saturday and the 16-team girls side on Sunday.

“I typed out a proposal to the (WOBM) general manager the next day (after the meeting),” Williams said as he took a break from managing the details leading up to this year’s tournament. One consideration was the coaches wanted the event to be more centrally located in Ocean County – nearly every team had to travel south when the games were at Southern Regional – and Williams knew just the place: . With the help of Joe Buckelew, who was a trustee at the college, the arrangements were made for the tournament to be held there. And with the assistance of the college’s athletic director, John Stauff, and the advice and input of Ruhnke and the Southern Regional staff, the event tipped off with eight boys teams.

 “We held the coaches seeding meeting in my living room,” Williams said. The first field featured Brick, Central, Manchester, , Point Boro, Southern, and .

The first game of that tournament in December 1984 set the tone for what the tournament has become known for: competitive, thrilling basketball games.

“The first game was Manchester vs. Central,” Williams said, noting that the teams featured some of the better players of that year. Central had Harrie Garris, who went on to play at Monmouth, and Mike Moran, while Manchester had brothers Earl and Chuck Kearny.

“Both teams scored 80 points,” Williams said, and the game came down to the final buzzer. Central was at the free throw line, leading by a point, and could have put the game out of reach because these were the days before the three-point shot. Both free throws missed, giving Manchester the ball.

“They hit a shot at least 30 feet from the basket right at the buzzer,” said Central coach Mike Clemente, the only coach in the tournament who has been there from the beginning. “We lost by a point.”

“That was the opening game,” Williams said.

The tournament, he said, “was an instant hit.” The central location and the competition among the Ocean County teams drew fans – with a surprising result: “We ended up making money.”

Williams said there was only one consideration for that profit, and that was to turn it into a scholarship. They gave out $1,000 the following year, and over the course of the tournament have awarded $55,000 in scholarships to seniors with the highest grade-point average who played in the tournament.

The tournament remained boys only for the first 10 years, but in 1994, the girls side was added, with four teams the first year, expanding quickly to six and then eight. At the same time, the boys side had expanded to 12 teams.

And then they were at capacity.

“We didn’t have enough days and times to expand (further),” Williams said. Timing being everything, there was soon a solution to the problem, as Pine Belt Arena opened on the campus of Toms River North.

The opening of the arena in 2003 allowed them to expand to 16 teams in each bracket, but the tournament is at maximum capacity with those 16 teams, Williams said.

And while some have asked over the years why he hasn’t pursued teams such as St. Anthony or St. Benedict’s on the boys side, and Red Bank Catholic or St. John Vianney on the girls side, Williams said that one of the reasons the tournament has been so successful year after year is the fact that it has retained that local flavor.

“Their fans aren’t traveling an hour and a half at Christmas time,” he said. In addition, “it doesn’t do the tournament any good if one team wins all its games by 40 points.”

It’s also become a great warm-up for the season ahead, both Williams and Clemente said.

“This is not the Shore Conference Tournament,” Williams said. “This is a little bit different.”

“It’s a really good experience for the high school kids because for some it’s the first pressure situation they’ve faced,” Clemente said. “The kids learn how to play under pressure,” a lesson that can serve them well in the SCT and the state tournaments later in the season.

That said, “to get to the final four (of the tournament) is a lot of fun,” said Clemente, whose team has reached the final three times.

The tournament also has been a place where kids have grown up before Williams’ eyes.

“I remember the Frazier kids (brothers Todd and Jeff, who’ve since gone on to ) running in the gym,” he said. “And there are now kids (playing in the tournament) whose fathers played in the tournament.”

Part of the reason for its success comes from the fact that Williams and the tournament staff – which now includes Toms River athletic director Joe Arminio, Ed Sarluca of the Shore Sports Network and Jim Hibbs, as well as a host of others – strive to make it a memorable experience for the players and coaches. That experience begins with a kickoff breakfast the day before the first round of the tournament, hosted by the Quality Inn of Toms River. More than 200 players and coaches get treated to a free breakfast and an opportunity to get to know some of the other players in the area. Friday, the players and coaches from this year’s tournament will sit down to breakfast and hear from King Rice and Jenny Palmateer, the men’s and women’s basketball coaches at Monmouth University, Williams said.

The Quality Inn is just one of several sponsors who have provided what Williams labels “unbelieveable sponsor support” over the history of the tournament. The tournament seeding meeting long ago moved out of Williams’ living room to Klee’s Bar & Grill. Causeway Auto Group in Manahawkin, which sponsored the Most Valuable Player trophy when the event was the Roundball Festival, stayed on and still provides the MVP trophies for the event. Other key sponsors include Gateway Toyota, Professional Orthopaedic Associates, and Barnabas Health, which is the 2011 presenting sponsor, and, of course, the Toms River schools, which provide not only the use of Pine Belt Arena but the gym at Toms River North as well, which allows them to hold as many games as they do.

Most importantly, “there is a real commitment from the radio station,” Williams said, both in terms of assistance that’s provided and understanding of the fact that the tournament consumes tremendous amounts of Williams’ time in the weeks leading up to it, allowing him to make it the best event possible.

“There’s an understanding that if we’re going to put our name on it, it better be good,” he said.

Williams said that he once said he’d keep running the WOBM Christmas Classic as long as his kids were in school. That time has passed now – his son has finished college and his daughter is a college student now – but Williams has no plans to step away from the tournament any time soon.

“It’s maybe the thing I’m single most proud of,” in his professional career, he said. “It’s my baby.”

And he loves every minute of it.