By DARIN ALLRED

Register Sports Editor

Who knew that a casual conversation between Sacred Heart coach Jon LeBrasseur and then KGAF Radio general manager Tom Carson in 1986 would change the landscape of high school basketball in Cooke County, but the last 20 plus years haven’t been the same.

Back in ‘86, LeBrasseur mentioned to Carson that there weren’t any good local tournaments for smaller schools in the area to attend like the ones that were being run in the Metroplex for bigger schools. They started to brainstorm an idea for a tournament to be played in Gainesville that would include all the schools in Cooke County.

Carson approached then Cooke County College president Dr. Bud Joiner about hosting the tournament. Joiner loved the idea and Carson had a handshake agreement with Joiner that his station would run the tournament for 20 years, which the two laughed about at the time.

Well as it happened, the 20-year anniversary of the tournament was last year. This past year, Carson sold his stock in the radio station. But he wanted the tournament to continue, so he turned over the project to North Central Texas College, who will host the 21st edition of the Holiday Classic Dec. 29-31.

“I had talked to the college about that last year and told them my involvement with the tournament would be coming to an end,” Carson said. “But I’m glad the tournament will continue. I think that it’s an important profile for the college. There are a lot of people in Cooke County that this is their chance to step foot on the campus of NCTC.”

Carson, who was a former student at the college himself, said the tournament was a way for him to give back something to the school.

While the idea for the tournament was sprung in 1986, the first tournament wasn’t played until 1988. Over the last 20 years, schools including Gainesville, Sacred Heart, Lindsay, Muenster, Era, Valley View, Callisburg, Collinsville, Saint Jo, Slidell, Nocona, Krum, Alvord, Forestburg, Pilot Point, Thackerville, Blue Ridge, Howe and Melissa have participated. The Sacred Heart boys and girls and the Lindsay girls are the only teams that have participated every year of the tournament’s existence.

When the tournament began in 1988, it gave a showcase for some outstanding teams and talented individual players.

“Historically basketball had been a second-class citizen to football in Cooke County,” Carson said, who noted that in A. Morton Smith’s book “The First 100 Years of Cooke County” there was not one mention of the word basketball.”

Twenty-one years later, football still gets most of the attention, but basketball has picked up steam. Since the inception of the tournament, the Gainesville Leopards, Sacred Heart Tigerettes and Lindsay Lady Knights have all won state championships in basketball, while the Muenster girls and Valley View girls both made two trips to the state title game.

“Basketball now a days has a much higher profile in Cooke County than it did before,” Carson noted.

Part of that is no doubt due to the Holiday Classic, which became more than just a tournament. Carson made a point to include special things within his tournament. In the early days when the starting lineups were announced for each game, he would turn off all the lights in the gym and shine spotlights on mirror balls. He also not only gave trophies to the winning teams, he also came up with the idea of a traveling cup that would reside in the trophy case at the winning school for a year, then be brought back to the tournament the next year.

While the gym lights can’t be turned out anymore during player introductions (because newer lights take a while to warm up and come back on), the Commissioners’ Cup is still given to the winning school. Every year, either the County Judge or members of the Cooke County Commissioners Court are on hand to present the traveling trophy.

“We looked at it as a county event and we wanted to get the County Judge out and get the athletes in the presence of the county officials,” Carson said.

Twice in the 20-year run of the Holiday Classic, the tournament was nearly iced out but both times it continued on without a single game being canceled, although Carson noted that one year they had to move some games to Sacred Heart in Muenster because Nocona couldn’t drive all the way to Gainesville because of icy roads.

Carson says there are lots of things he will remember about the tournament including some classic matchups between rivals, but the thing he is proudest of is the Academic All-Star team, which he started in 1990. It recognizes senior players in the tournament who have maintained a high school average of 90 or higher.

“To my knowledge, we were the first tournament in North Texas to do that,” Carson noted. “I think it’s important. After all they are high school student athletes.”

As North Central Texas College takes over the tournament this year, they will keep some of Carson’s personal touches, including the Academic All-Star team and the Commissioners’ Cup traveling trophy. They will also still present the Bill King Award, which is named for former Gainesville Daily Register sports editor Bill King. That award was started in 1996 and is presented to an individual or organization that has excelled in the promotion of sportsmanship.

This year’s tournament will have a bit of a different format since there are only six teams participating. Each team will play two pool games before beginning bracket play. The pool games won’t affect the bracket, but will give each team a chance to work out some kinks after a long holiday layoff. Once bracket play begins on Tuesday, the tournament becomes single elimination.

“There are only six teams on each side, so you can’t have a true elimination-type tournament without somebody receiving byes,” NCTC athletic director Van Hedrick said. “We still want to guarantee everyone three games and try to avoid people having to play each other in the same district, so we tried to look at all those aspects and try to put on a quality tournament.”

This year’s girls participants include Callisburg, Era, Sacred Heart, Gainesville, Lindsay and Howe. Boys teams participating include Callisburg, Gainesville State School, Sacred Heart, Gainesville JV, Forestburg and Howe.

Play begins at 9 a.m., all three days. Fans can purchase tickets at the door that will allow them to see all eight games each day. Tickets this year are just $5 per day for adults and $3 for children.

The All-Academic Team awards will be presented Tuesday night before the 7:30 p.m., contest. The girls championship game will be Wednesday at 4 p.m., while the boys championship game is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. The girls All-Tournament team and the Bill King Award will be announced after the girls championship game, while the boys All-Tournament team will be honored after the boys championship game.

All games will be played in Lions Fieldhouse on the NCTC campus.