Has the John Wall Holiday Invitational outgrown Broughton?
As dusk settled over downtown Raleigh on Friday afternoon, the action inside Holliday Gym on the campus of Broughton High School was peaking.
It was the second day of the John Wall Holiday Invitational, where the basketball never stops. Games started around brunch, and passionate basketball fans planted their flag in the bleachers and never let up, settled in for the long haul.
With future Division I and NBA players on almost every roster, fans don’t want to miss a glimpse of the next big star. Around happy hour on day two, the fans outside could only hope to grab a glimpse of what was happening inside the gym.
“What time is the first game tomorrow?” a curious fan, taking a seat on a bench, asked a companion. “I think I’ll just try again tomorrow.”
That one fan, wearing a baseball cap and blue jacket, accepted his fate. There were hundreds of others who were a bit more optimistic, not ready to throw in the towel just yet.
The line at the door at Holliday Gym poured onto the sidewalk and hung around the curb towards an adjacent parking lot. Hang a left at the garage and you were greeted by another herd of fans, most of them locked in on their phones, anything to kill the time. Enter the parking lot and even more fans waited, the line almost touching St. Mary’s Street, which runs along side Broughton High.
Most of those outside assumed, maybe hoped is a better word, that fans would leave when the current game ended, making room for those outside to catch the nightcap. Perhaps the fan who was going to give it a try the next day had the right idea.
The John Wall has grown into one of the premier prep basketball tournaments in the country. The 2019 version didn’t lack star appeal. The nation’s top team, Montverde Academy, was playing in the tournament for the second time, and made its debut on Friday. The Eagles feature a starting lineup where all five players have committed to Division I programs, including Day’Ron Sharpe, who signed with North Carolina.
The Patrick School featured junior Jonathan Kuminga, the top overall player in his class. And of course the local schools like Millbrook, Broughton, Apex Friendship, Garner, Holly Springs, Word of God and Leesville Road bring a nice following.
After Christmas the John Wall has become the hottest ticket in town. The mile long line outside speaks for itself. So now many wonder, is it time for the John Wall to find a bigger home?
“Not to me,” Webb Wellman, one of the Holiday Invitational board members told the N&O.
Wellman, and his HoopState Network team, helped the event grow in the last couple of years. The post Christmas tournament has been going on for 48 years, but with the emergence of social media and basketball mixtapes featuring athletes who play in the event, the anticipation grows for the tournament as soon as teams are announced.
Wellman has seen plenty of events move to bigger venues. He’s also heard the cry from fans about moving the tournament back to Reynolds Coliseum on the campus of NC State. The tournament called Reynolds home on several occasions and was even played at PNC Arena — then known as the Entertainment and Sports Arena — before returning to Broughton, where the tournament originated, in 2007.
Holliday Gym seats 2,150, making it one of the biggest high school gyms in the state, not just the area. Reynolds can hold up to 6,000, depending on the set up, and that would be more than enough to please the fans who stood outside for at least an hour waiting to get in. Some say moving to a bigger venue would get more people inside, but would it fill all the seats?
“I’m not worried about that, our fans are the best in the country,” Wellman said. “We can fill out a Reynolds, but it’s not the same.”
Part of what makes the John Wall what it is is the atmosphere. Most of the fans seated courtside are high school students, who spend 11 months watching players highlight tapes on YouTube, or the HoopState Network, in anticipation of the John Wall.
Since school is out until January, the students show up early and stay late, picking a team, or player, to root for each game.
Evan Daniels, the 247Sports Director of Recruiting, was in Raleigh the first two days of the tournament. Daniels attends prep basketball events all around the country and said just how unique the John Wall is.
“I’ve been to a lot of holiday events,” Daniels told the N&O. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen an event sell out at 3:30 in the afternoon. It’s pretty cool.”
On the opening day Holliday Gym was full before the fourth game. The parking lot was at capacity, and attendants outside (new this year) had to instruct drivers to find parking elsewhere.
Luckily, the temperatures outside made walking a distance, and standing outside bearable.
Bill Sewell, director of the John Wall Invitational, occasionally steps outside to look at the line as it grows.
He called the wait to get in “ridiculous” and would be open to a bigger venue, if one exist.
“It would be great if we could get everybody in, but the reality is there is nowhere we can go,” Sewell told the N&O. “There is just not a better place to go. The location is fantastic, if we could magically add another thousand seats it would be perfect, and obviously we can’t do that.”
The tournament has a year-to-year contract with Community Schools and Wake County. The one place that keeps getting thrown around when a bigger venue is brought up is Reynolds. But that’s not as easy as just packing up and moving. The NCAA complicates things, for one.
Bylaw 13.11.1.8 was passed in April of 2011, stating that “An institution [including any institutional department (e.g., athletics, recreational/intramural)] shall not host, sponsor or conduct a nonscholastic basketball practice or competition in which men’s basketball prospective student athletes (see Bylaw 13.11.1.2) participate on its campus or at an off-campus facility regularly used by the institution for practice and/or competition by any of the institution’s sport programs.”
That would eliminate Reynolds, Cameron Indoor Stadium or any other local college gym.
Sewell said Broughton has the accommodations — extra locker rooms, big lobby — that can handle multiple teams and a big crowd. Sewell hears the complaints from people who can’t get in and admitted if a bigger venue came calling, he’d be willing to listen. But he also doesn’t want to lose the atmosphere that comes with playing at Broughton.
Plus the aesthetics are irreplaceable.
“It’s such a beautiful school,” Sewell said. “It’s old, it’s traditional. All the glass, the natural light. The lobby is fantastic. It’s intimate and sort of modern. It’s just a great place.”
The intimacy is what makes Broughton and the John Wall a match made in basketball tournament heaven.
Daniels said the John Wall is what every basketball event should strive for. The combination of passionate fans, right on top of their favorite players can’t be duplicated. And all parties involved don’t want to lose that luster, what makes the tournament what it is.
“To me, we are who we are because of this school and the fans,” Wellman said. “This venue is amazing to me.”
This story was originally published December 29, 2019 at 12:59 PM with the headline "Has the John Wall Holiday Invitational outgrown Broughton?."
