yardley brackets

	What:	Newport Harbor HS George Yardley Tournament
	When:	July 6-8, 2001
	Where:	Newport Harbor HS Vanguard University Ensign Middle School
	Who:	32 Top HS Teams

Not a lot of people these days remember George Yardley. In fact, if you ask most kids today who George Yardley was, they'll probably just give you a blank stare and say "Who?"

But Yardley is probably the most famous and successful (at least in terms of basketball) of any Newport Harbor HS grad ever to play the game. Still not impressed? How about the fact that in seven seasons, the NBA Hall of Fame 6'-5" forward scored 2,001 points in a single NBA season from 1957-1958, an NBA record at the time in which he averaged more than 27 ppg. In seven short seasons in the NBA, he appeared in six NBA All Star games, and averaged 17 ppg over the course of his abbreviated career during an era when scoring 70 for the whole team was a high-scoring game. He retired from the NBA in 1960 to support his family simply because he couldn't do so on the salaries paid at the time: His salary never topped out at $25,000, which is roughly 100 times less what Eddy Curry or Tyson Chandler will make before they ever even appear in their first NBA game. . . my how times have changed. George retired in 1960 to support his family and started a very successful business. If you want to know more about him, there's a George Yardley Company website, and it also features some very interesting historical facts and stats about George's great career. How impressive was his career? When he was inducted in the Hall of Fame, Jerry West said, "I've never told George this before, but when I was a kid in "West Virginia, I used to watch Yardley on television and marvel over his fabulous jump shot."

George and his family have close ties to the Newport Beach community, and he and his wife Diana have raised four kids there. Now its his turn to give a little back and for the school to honor him a bit. So there's going to be this little tournament in early July. Actually it's not so little. It's huge, and just about every top team in Orange County will be there, 32 teams in all.

Larry Hirst, the head coach at Newport Harbor sent us the brackets and they are huge. Here's what this thing looks like:

Consolation 7/8	Consolation 7/7	Consolation 7/7	First Round 7/6	Second Round 7/6	Quarterfinals 7/7	Championship Semi-finals 7/7	Championship 7/8
7/8 10:00 a.m. NHHS	7/7 5:30 p.m. NHHS	7/7 9:30 a.m. NHHS	Northwood 1:00 p.m. NHHS Dana Hills	7/6 5:30 p.m. NHHS	7/7 12:30 p.m. Vanguard	7/7 7:00 p.m. Vanguard	7/8 6:00 p.m. NHHS
			Chino 1:00 p.m. Vanguard Chaparral
		7/7 9:30 a.m. Vanguard	La Quina (LQ) 11:00 a.m. NHHS Irvine	7/6 5:00 p.m. Ensign
			Trabuco Hills 2:00 p.m. NHHS Elsinore
	7/7 5:30 p.m. Vanguard	7/7 1000 a.m. NHHS	Foothill 2:00 p.m. Ensign Fallbrook	7/6 6:00 p.m. Vanguard	7/7 1:00 p.m. NHHS
			La Quinta (Westminster) 11::30 a.m. NHHS El Toro
		7/7 10:00 a.m. NHHS	Fountain Valley 11:00 am Ensign San Clemente	7/6 6:00 p.m. NHHS
			Stockdale 2:30 pm. NHHS Mater Dei
7/8 10:00 a.m. Vanguard	7/7 6:00 p.m. NHHS	7/7 11:00 a.m. NHHS	Aliso Niguel 11:30 a.m. Vanguard Villa Park	7/6 7:00 p.m. NHHS	7/7 2:00 p.m. Vanguard	7/7 7:30 p.m. NHHS
			Murrieta Valley 2:30 p.m. Vanguard Bolsa Grande
		7/7 11:00 a.m. Vanguard	Huntington Beach 12:30 p.m. NHHS La Costa Canyon	7/6 6:30 p.m. Ensign
			Santa Ana Valley 3:00 p.m. NHHS Mission Viejo
	7/7 7:00 p.m. NHHS	7/7 11:30 a.m. NHHS	Estancia 3:00 p.m. Ensign Rancho Verde	7/6 7:30 p.m. Vanguard	7/7 2:30 p.m. NHHS
			Corona Del Mar 12::30 p.m. Ensign Katella
		7/7 11:30 a.m. Ensign	Calabasas 4:30 pm Vanguard Edison	7/6 7:30 p.m. NHHS
			Morro Bay 4:30 pm. NHHS Newport Harbor

We don't have the time right now to put up the bracket for the consolation/loser's bracket games, but we'll add those later where appropriate. Suffice it to say this will be a big tournament and a great way to kick off the summer for most of the teams in Orange County. Unfortunately, we'll be back east at the adidas ABCD Camp, so we won't be able to provide coverage or tournament results, but we're sure that there will be a lot posted on the message board.