There wasn’t a local champion, but the annual George Long Holiday Hoops Tournament again proved a popular boys high-school basketball event, with multiple side stories emerging.
The 23rd annual tourney, which has included eight teams every year, has been held at Wakefield High School each time, this year Dec. 26, 27 and 29.
The holiday competition is one of the longest running in the D.C. area. Public and private schools annually are represented.
It has been played at two different school buildings at Wakefield High School over the years, held at the new facility the last 13 times.
“It’s a lot of work, but we look forward to this every year and we will continue to hold it as long as I am the coach here,” said tournament director and Wakefield Warriors’ boys head coach Tony Bentley, who started the event in the 2003-04 season.
Wakefield finished fifth in this year’s tourney with a 2-1 record. The tournament was won by Forest Park of Prince William County with a 3-0 record. Colonial Forge of Stafford County finished second in the Dec. 29 title game.
Forest Park was the second team from Prince William County to win the title. Gar-Field was the first in 2009.
Colonial Forge is coached by Wakefield High graduate Deidrich Gilreath. He became the first person to compete in the tournament as a player, assistant coach and coach.
Gilreath played in the tournament years back while at Wakefield, later was an assistant coach in the event for the Warriors and most recently led Colonial Forge in the competition as its head coach.
Two other former Wakefield assistant coaches — South County High’s Mike Robinson (2019 and 2022) and Annandale High’s Drew Simpson (2021) — were head coaches of teams that won previous George Long championships.
Among other tidbits from the competition’s history:
- There have been 14 different teams that have won the tournament, with Wakefield winning the most titles (four), the last in 2015
- Overall, 65 different teams have played in the event, most from the D.C. area and from all parts of Virginia but some from as far away as Kentucky, Georgia and Mississippi
- Three different teams named “Potomac” have entered over the years, a public school each from Virginia (Dumfries) and Maryland (Oxon Hill) and the private Potomac School from McLean
- Arlington’s Washington-Liberty Generals team has played in the tournament all but one season, finishing as high as second once, in 2022
Two former college men’s head basketball coaches attended this year’s tournament. Former Marymount University head coach Chuck Driesell was on hand as the head coach of the Maret Frogs from D.C., the sixth-place finisher after losing to Wakefield in one of this season’s consolation games.
Of this year’s eight participating teams, the only one not from Virginia was Maret.
“It was an honor to have the opportunity to coach against Chuck Driesell and to see that he still has the same passion he always has for coaching,” Bentley told ARLnow.
Former Georgetown University coach Craig Esherick, an Arlington resident and member of the Arlington Sports Hall of Fame, was in the stands watching some of the action. Driesell had been an assistant under Esherick at Georgetown at one time.
The biggest surprise of the tournament? A final-day power outage occurring early in the third quarter of the first of four games.
Organizers contemplated using the limited available natural light until darkness fell, but didn’t have to go that route. The game between the Washington-Liberty Generals and the two-time defending Class 6 state champion South Lakes Seahawks immediately resumed when electricity was restored 25 minutes later.
The tournament’s namesake — late George Long — was a big supporter of Wakefield High School sports and the annual holiday basketball tournament. Among other things, Long was the disc jockey during tournament action. The event was eventually named in his honor after Long died in 2010 from ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease).
