Exposure key for Gamble stars

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Exposure key for Gamble stars

By Dave Rogers

The Port Arthur News

BEAUMONT -- Practice for Friday's Port Arthur News/James Gamble Award Game took second stage to the Easter weekend Reebok Pearland Classic.

At least six of 10 finalists for the James Gamble Basketball Awards participated in the three-day, 157-team AAU tournament that began Friday evening. For that reason, award namesake James Gamble cut short Friday morning's workout at Ozen High.

"We didn't get a whole lot done in these first two days," Gamble, the legendary former Port Arthur Lincoln High coach, said of Thursday and Friday workouts at Ozen. "But it gave us an opportunity to get to know each other.

"We got an early look at the kids to try to figure out what kind of skills they have so we can come up with offensive and defensive strategies to take advantage of them."

Gamble is readying for this Friday's 8 p.m. matchup between the best basketball players Southeast Texas has to offer and an all-star team from Houston in a highly anticipated warmup for Saturday night's Fifth Annual James Gamble Awards Banquet.

His players will be, too, come Monday.

But, for them, the last three days have been about top-caliber competition in Pearland and the opportunities it can create.

Hardin-Jefferson's Ryan Donahoe, Ozen's Jacoby Joseph, West Orange-Stark's Richard Netherly, Clayton 'C.J.' Busby of Kountze and Jeremy Pitre of West Brook are all members of the Southeast Texas Rashard Lewis All-Stars.

Memorial's J'Covan Brown carries the Port Arthur Heat banner in the Pearland event.

"It's an opportunity to showcase my talent," says Donahoe, MVP of Hardin-Jefferson's Class 3A state championship game. "I'm going out to prove myself and have fun. And we want to put Southeast Texas on the map and represent."

Area pride is strong, what with the Gamble Awards finalists having played on some of the top teams in the region and state.

"Everybody underrates us," says Netherly, MVP of the 2006 Region III-3A tournament. "We want to put Southeast Texas on the map."

Basically, Gamble Awards finalists come in three flavors -- signed seniors, unsigned seniors and juniors.

Ozen's Kris Richard, the 2006 James Gamble Mr. Outside winner, is the only player in the game who has already locked up a scholarship agreement, having signed with Tulane.

Six of the other players -- Donahoe, Netherly, Busby, Pitre, Cameron Powell of Kountze and Terrence Jones of Silsbee -- are unsigned seniors. Three -- Brown, Tramain Thomas of East Chambers and Joseph -- are juniors who cannot sign before next November.