say no recap

Southern California College Open
"Say No Classic": First Weekend Recap--(June 16, 2003)

	What:		Say No Classic College Basketball League
	Where:		West Los Angeles College
	When:		Throughout the Summer (Weekends Only)
	Who:		20 Teams of Division I, II, III college players NCAA Certified League

The Say No Classic League, now in its 28th seaon, got off to a good start this past weekend at West Los Angeles College. Not all of the team rosters were full, as many players are still coming back into town from college, or were on vacations, or spent Father's Day with their families, but nevertheless, it was a good turnout from what we heard. The teams are continuing to get organized, but since there was only one day of competition (Sunday), not all of the teams entered in the league had games. But at least things are cranking back up again and you can expect to see some excellent action in the coming weeks. If you've never visited a Say No League Summer game, you don't know what you're missing. And now that the league is back at West LA College again (instead of the sweltering furnace that LA Trade Tech can be during the height of summer), it will actually be a pleasant place to catch some of the midday weekend games when temperatures can be at their highest. And even better, admission is free, at least it was the last time we checked.

This past Sunday was just one day of competiton. The league will get going in full this coming Friday night, and then will be in action all day Saturday and Sunday, and you can, over the course of those three days, see just about every team in the league at least once. The schedules can be found at the Say No Classic website.

The guys who really make this league happen, from an organizational perspective are Rod Smith (who has been at this the longest, for at least the last 15 years), and more recently, Michael Wolf and Rico Cabrera, two former Harvard-Westlake players who went on to play at Tufts and Colgate, respectively, and who are now in business but can't seem to shake the basketball "bug". Others have surely been involved over the years, but these three guys have really done a lot of the yeoman's work to keep this league together recently.

The teams entered have some pretty unusual names, like "Hank's Top Prospects" or "Hank's Bakersfield Boys" or "Hank's Lil' Hoopers," or "Hank's Big Time," or simply "Hank's Team." And then there's "Salvatori's Matadors" or "Salvatori's 49'ers" or "Salvatori's Coyotes". Of course there are other teams, without a "Hank" in their names, teams like California Team Select, or West Coast Sports, or OC, Top Flight, B-N-R, The Highlanders, CABC, The Running J's, Entertainment Tonight, or simply "Say No." 20 teams in the league in all.

The bigger question, looking at the list of team names, is "Who's Hank?" and why are there so many teams named after him? That's a question that the real Hank would probably rather leave unanswered, but we can't resist: He does deserve some of the credit for helping to keep the league together too, in a very real and substantial way. No, "Hank" isn't Henry Bibby, despite what some uninformed initiates will tell you. The real story is that "Hank" is actually Henry Salvatori, who is the offspring of a senior Henry Salvatori. Native Southern Californians who grew up in the 50's and 60's, or who gained any political consciousness during the 60's, 70's or 80's, will recognize the name as being one of the original "Kitchen Cabinet" members, who started the prairie fire that was connected with the revolution led by Ronald Reagan in his early days, a movement which swept Reagan into the California governor's mansion and then the White House. The senior Salvatori was sufficiently successful in the family oil drilling and tool business, so successful that Hank has had the resources (and more importantly, the time and desire) to become a sort of silent patriarch of local basketball, a kind of patron saint of hoops if you will, and he's done as much as anyone to help this league along. That's who "Hank" is....Oh, and "Grace?" That's his wife's name.

So who is on each of these teams? We really can't say for certain, because as we said, the rosters aren't complete yet. Even though all the teams are technically "full," most of the coaches haven't turned in their rosters yet, and thus the Say No official website doesn't have the information posted. That will undoubtedly be corrected this week as everyone reports their rosters and the website is updated. In the meantime though, we can thank Rico Cabrera, who put together and published the stats for this past Sunday's games. Those game reports (i.e., boxscores) can be found here, at the Rico Cabrera Group, LLC Basketball website.

And from those boxscores, we can glean at least some partial roster info. Here's what we know:

Jeremy Groth
Matt Benson
Torin Beeler
Bret Ost
Chris Victor
Nate Carter
Larry Cunningham
David Jobe
Vili Morton

Calvert Wright
Lynn Grayson
Ron Estridge
Gene Myvett
Morgan Smith
LeMar Ruffin
Brandon Dalton

Aras Baskauskas
Cody Pearson
Mike Efvberha
Ryan Dillon
David Brock
Antoine Jackson
Dennis Coutee

Tashean Forehan-Kelly
Jarret Skrifvars
John Cheispers
Hayden Socci
Wesley Washington
James Hartman
Danny Lambert
Brandon Rohe
Mike Stowell
Evan Moore

Tezarray Bank
Brian Mc Fadden
Alex Acker
Jason Chivers
Chris Acker
Eze Burts
Johnny Hardwick
Jerry Dupree
Jonathan Oliver
Robert Turner
Ronald Allen

Bobby Brown
Kevin Bell
John Clemmons
D. Rogers
Jumbe Williams
Brian Pruitt
Derrick Craven
Keith Everage
Chad Bell
Anthony Coleman
Scott Cutley

Keith Kincaide
Glenn McGowan
Sherman Gay
Donald Wilson
Marcus Williams
Eric Butler
James Fountain
Jason Lucas

T.K. Reed
J. Levy
Darnell Graham
Yoseph Yaisrael
Trenell Eddings
Dumas Martin
C. Williams
G. Blair

Ian Boylan
C. Davis
L. Langston
T. Walker
R. Webb
Jason Gilzene
A. Hines
L. Gladden
Thomas Shewmake

Jason Leonard
Darnell Williams
Marvin Lea
Antwan Parker
David Patten
Diamond Johnson
Chris Jenkins
Vince Williams
Jimmy Goffredo

Mark Peters
Ricky Porter
Justin White
Aaron Lesone
Jackson Wood
Jaqay Carlyle
Chris Brazelton
Blake Walker
Jason Johnson
Damion Ware
Kamron Lenard
Alex Graham

Jason Braxton
Tron Smith
James Reynolds
Derrick Clark
Eugene Jeter
Steve Moore
Dorrell Wright
Doug Thomas
J. Middleton

Brian Morrison
David Gale
Mike Fey - UCLA
Kirk Snyder
Corey Belser
Joel Jones
Tyler Newton
Napoleon Sanderford
Nassai Daniels
Derek Stockalper