The oldest street basketball tournament in the world – 54 years and counting – doesn’t get the buzz, doesn’t get the crowds, the tourists, the celebrities and certainly doesn’t get the sponsors.
The oldest street basketball tournament in the world – held every summer since 1950, at Colonel Young Park on 145th and Lenox – only has its name and tradition going for it.
It’s the Holcombe Rucker Tournament – the original, Rucker – and it’s not played at Rucker Park. Those who run the real Rucker are so frustrated by the confusion that they’ve considered going to court to protect their name.
With the basketball festival at 155th Street and 8th in Rucker Park exploding in popularity over the past five years, it is the Holcombe Rucker event that time has forgotten.
When basketball junkies talk about going to the Rucker, they’re referring to what is technically the EBC Classic, where various rappers, Bill Clinton and the Maloof brothers are spotted each summer watching the spectacle.
ESPN2 has broadcast games and now NBA TV holds the rights, waiting for the next pro star to drop in and hit the Harlem concrete. Tommy Hilfiger and Rapper Joe have teams. Kobe Bryant played in a few games two years ago.
Baron Davis is a regular. Stephon Marbury never missed a game the prior two summers, for Terror Squad.
It’s why as many as 500 spectators, some from as far away as China, gather on summer weeknights at Rucker Park.
“They’re ripping off the name,” said Bernard Bowen, the assistant director of Holcombe. “We just feel overshadowed.
It’s a copycat. Everyone thinks that’s the Rucker tournament because it’s played in Rucker Park.”
And that would be OK, if not for the blood, sweat and tears that director Donald Adams, 76, put into keeping the real Rucker alive since 1965 when Holcombe, one of the giants in the city’s parks and recreation department, died.
“A lot of sponsors will call up looking to make a donation and will ask us if this is the tournament on 155th Street,” Bowen said. “And when we say no, they say, well that’s the one they’re looking for.”
And so the Rucker Park court is surrounded by company billboards.
Colonel Young Park lies naked, filled solely with hardcore basketball played by the city’s youth every weekend from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. in 12-andunder, 14-and-under, 16-and-under, high school and college divisions.
ESPN is nowhere to be found.
“Don has built up the Rucker name that Holcombe started so city kids could get into prep schools, realize college scholarships,” Bowen said. “We wish some of the success from the Rucker name would filter down to the youth. If you’re a city kid and can play basketball, you’ve come through the Holcombe Rucker Tournament. Don’t overlook the little guys.”
Greg Marius, 46, a former rapper, started the EBC Classic at Rucker Park in 1980, picking up where the old Rucker Pro League left off in the early 1970s when Earl Monroe, Wilt Chamberlain and Willis Reed graced the Harlem court. But the success was short-lived because the nervous NBA put a clause in contracts refusing to pay a player who suffered an injury in a non-NBA event.
Marius is sensitive to the notion that he stole the Rucker name. He claims to have gone great lengths to correct anyone who refers to his extravaganza as “The Rucker.”
“The tournaments are totally different,” Marius said. “We entertain fans. I combined rappers and ballplayers together because they come from the same neighborhood and like the same things.”
And now Rucker Park is considered the glitziest basketball stage in New York outside the Garden, bigger than West 4th Street. The park was dedicated to Rucker in the late ’60s in a ceremony Adams didn’t get invited to until the day before. He declined to attend and is still bitter.
“I’ve tried to talk to Don,” Marius said. “He cursed me out. He’s set in his ways.”
The conspiracy theory is that Adams wasn’t informed about the park ceremony until so late because, given time, he would’ve tried to get an injunction to halt it. “It was a ploy to be able to use the name that we had
because we have intellectual property rights,” Adams said. “We would’ve objected to using the name.”
Two years ago, Adams served court papers for infringement rights to Chris Rucker, Holcombe’s 32-year-old grandson, when he started a new Rucker pro-am tournament Rucker Park. The grandson ignored the warning and “Rucker” is brandished on each uniform. Adams won’t sue because Rucker has contended he
named the tournament after himself.
“We’ve never gotten anything from the Rucker family to keep ours going,” Adams said.
Now Adams is trying to make peace, setting up a meeting with Rucker to ask him to sponsor uniforms and hand out trophies on Championship Day Aug. 15. Sponsorship has run dry, with shoe companies starting their own pro-am tournaments, copycatting the EBC Classic.
The original Rucker used to boast Reebok , Nike and ITT as sponsors. Adams refused to move his tournament to Rucker Park when last invited 25 years ago. He contends he still wouldn’t abandon Colonel Young Park on 145th for 155th.
“I didn’t go then because there were too many problems,” he said, referring to the crime element. “I wouldn’t put our tournament over there now because we’ve established ourselves in the community.”
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Tale of the tape
HOLCOMBE RUCKER TOURNAMENT
YEARS: 54
LOCATION: Colonel Young Park (155th and 8th)
FOUNDER: Holcombe Rucker (parks recreational director)
AVERAGE ATTENDANCE: 75 for a big game
MOST FAMOUS PARTICIPANT: Ron Artest
MOST FAMOUS CELEBRITY FAN: Anthony Mason
TV COVERAGE: None
MOST NOTABLE PLAYER THIS YEAR: Jason Wingate (Manhattan College)
TEAMS: 40
MOST FAMOUS FAN: Gauchos
*
EBC TOURNAMENT
YEARS: 24
LOCATION: Rucker Park (145th and Lenox)
FOUNDER: Greg Marius (rapper)
AVERAGE ATTENDANCE: 500 nightly
MOST FAMOUS PARTICIPANT: Kobe Bryant
MOST FAMOUS CELEBRITY FAN: Bill Clinton
TV COVERAGE: NBA TV
MOST NOTABLE PLAYER THIS YEAR: Stephon Marbury (New York Knicks)
TEAMS: 24 (16 men, 4 women, 4 under-14)
MOST FAMOUS FAN: Tommy Hilfiger
