Post-level sports in Korea on life support
Published: December 15, 2011
If there’s a 27th anniversary Osan Pacificwide Holiday Basketball Tournament next December for post-level teams in Korea and the Pacific, I’ll be very surprised.
All the proof you need comes in the form of three things: 1) The late start to Korea’s Traveling League season, and 2) Only nine teams, six men and three women, with just one team, Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, coming from off-peninsula, partly because of 3) cutbacks in funding for varsity-level sports in Korea.
That’s the smallest field we’ve seen in that tournament, which began in 1987. And the tournament is not even being staged by 51st Force Support at Osan Air Base; Tony Jones, the Osan Defenders head coach, is putting on the tournament.
He happens to have a solid collection of All-Air Force players who got assigned to Korea partly because of the history of high-calibre post-level ball in Korea; hence, he wanted a stage for them to perform, so Jones offered to do the tournament instead.
Sort of like being all dressed up with no place to go, though.
Only Osan, Andersen, Yongsan Garrison, Suwon Air Base, Kunsan Air Base and Camp Humphreys are represented at this year’s Pacificwide.
In years past, there was enough money in the varsity sports pot at the various Army garrisons in Korea to fully fund their post-level teams, everything from bus transportation to regular-season games and in-country tournaments, to tournament entry fees, to in some cases funding travel and billeting to events such as the Martin Luther King Invitational on Okinawa and March Madness at Andersen.
Kiss those days goodbye, if budget cutbacks are any indicator. Army teams on peninsula are being told their entry fees would be paid, but they must come out of pocket for ground transportation and billeting – which can be pretty pricey, anywhere from $39 per night at Osan’s Turumi Lodge to $75 at Army lodging.
And that would likely also mean Okinawa’s MLK won’t see any post teams from Korea this year; I’m told some Army teams won’t even be able to support Korea’s own MLK at Camp Humphreys’ Super Gym. March Madness may be scrambling for some teams as well.
This was something I’d sort of predicted years ago, when talk began circulating about longtime Yongsan Garrison sports chief Bennie Jackson’s imminent retirement. He’s been the godfather of post-level sports in Korea, the longtime director of the Pacificwide softball tournament Memorial Day weekend at Yongsan. I’d said when Bennie leaves, the post-level program in Korea – and since Korea’s a bedrock of Pacific ball, the entire region – would be in trouble.
Lonnie Herring at Camp Humphreys offered to pick up the post-level basketball league this year since nobody else did; the season began late, the first weekend of December. He did the preseason tournament, he’ll do the Korea MLK and the Traveling League postseason tournament in March.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for a post-level league next year. Maybe not even a softball league this year.
What a shame. As I’ve said many times, it’s all well and noble that the services are emphasizing the “fit to fight tonight” concept by pouring most of the services dollars into fitness and core sports programs.
But you also have a $1.75 billion industry known as All-Armed Forces sports to support. Without an elite-level varsity program in your areas, how can you support it with elite-level athletes? Who will be the ones you can hold up as examples to the youth of America, the Olympic gold medalists or the International Military Sports Council tournament champions who send the message to America’s youth: You CAN serve your country and play sports for your service.
Or maybe the All-Armed Forces sports industry is on the chopping block with this $400 billion in budget cuts coming in the next decade?
