One is sure to see a little bit of everything if they wander around the marathon of action that is the Twin Cities Gus Macker long enough.<\/p>\n
Last week\u2019s event, hosted at North Hennepin Community College from Aug. 15 to Aug. 16, brought out lovers of the game from across Brooklyn Park and far beyond it. Amidst the crowd, Park Center alum Paris Kyles, part of the class of 2003, plays on the same blacktop as his son, Paris Kyles Jr., an incoming freshman at Park Center.<\/p>\n
Kyles, who graduated from Minnesota State University, Mankato, before playing abroad and more recently spending time on the Park Center boys basketball coaching staff, is making the most of the experience. He told the Sun Post that he was enjoying every moment of sharing the Gus Macker with his son and entire family.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s awesome to have had my own journey and now be a part of [my son\u2019s] as he\u2019s coming up and doing some of the same things I did,\u201d Kyles said. \u201cI\u2019m just enjoying the moment being out here and having fun with it and I\u2019ve encouraged him to do the same. I want him to go socialize, talk to people, watch games, and just be present. I\u2019m just happy to be back at the Gus Macker and to be able to share that with him.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Gus Macker<\/p>\n
The year 2026 marks the 52nd anniversary of the Gus Macker tournaments, with the latest version of the Twin Cities games entering its third year under the tutelage of Minneapolis Northwest Tourism.<\/p>\n
The original tournament was started by Scott McNeal, who invited 18 of his neighborhood friends to play over the weekend on his parents’ driveway during March Madness. The tournament continued to gain popularity, eventually hitting the road in 1987, and has become a staple in recreational sports.<\/p>\n
Teams of four registered with a $200 fee, guaranteeing them three games. They then play 3-on-3 games to 21 points on the outdoor courts set up on the North Hennepin Community College campus. Last year, the event fielded 173 teams while raising nearly $30,000 for community nonprofits. The tournament has contributed over $50,000 to local nonprofits since returning to the Twin Cities. Teams, which are split into age groups, feature players as young as 6, while the top brackets feature wide ranges of age and the men’s divisions reach as far as 40-plus.<\/p>\n
The most recent roster of Minnesotan nonprofits to partner with and benefit from the Gus Macker includes the Minnesota Chill Foundation, Brooklyn Park Athletic Association, NextGen Legacy Foundation, Forward Thinking and Big Brothers Big Sisters Twin Cities.<\/p>\n
Other events within the tournament, in addition to a celebrity game and mascot game, include a women\u2019s\/girls’ three-point contest and a slam dunk contest, both with grand prizes of $500.<\/p>\n
Full circle<\/p>\n
The Gus Macker’s history and legacy were on full display as several generations of Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn Center history converged last week.<\/p>\n
Kyles told the Sun Post that last week\u2019s tournament was a return to the very events that helped build his childhood connection with basketball.<\/p>\n
\u201cI played in the Gus Macker when I was younger, so to see it come back and have the opportunity to play in it again just brings back a lot of memories,\u201d the former Maverick explained. \u201cI think that, as a basketball player, you\u2019ve got to have this experience on your resume. It\u2019s awesome to see people come out and see people I played against when I was younger out here, some of them with kids playing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The vast range of options that sports like basketball now compete with for the attention of a young child is not lost on Kyles, who noted that events like the Gus Macker can help start a special bond.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope this brings some more awareness to the game for folks,\u201d Kyles said. \u201cI think it\u2019s good for the kids. Obviously electronics are a thing, so events like this give more chances for kids to come out and fall in love with basketball. This event goes all from very young ages to us adults. But yeah, also, it\u2019s a great chance for our community to come out and show that there\u2019s good basketball here and we can have a big family environment with competition and love.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Gus Macker is proud of its dedication to outdoor play, something on display Saturday as the early games were faced with a mild downpour. Kyles told the Sun Post that the event\u2019s focus on teaching players to make magic happen in the elements is crucial.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, if you want to be a good basketball player you have to be able to play in the elements,\u201d the Park Center alum-turned-coach observed. \u201cIf you can\u2019t, you haven\u2019t finished your journey. You\u2019ve got to be able to shoot in the wind, with sun in your eyes, when it\u2019s hot. That\u2019s the stuff that builds the grit and resiliency that you\u2019ll need one day in your journey when things get hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Copyright\u00a0\u00a9 2023 at Sun Newspapers\/ APG Media of East Central Minnesota. Digital dissemination of this content without prior written consent is a violation of federal law and may be subject to legal action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One is sure to see a little bit of everything if they wander around the marathon of action…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,5796,121769,121766,121768,121770,9,24,63,121767,39472],"class_list":["post-323176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-brooklyn-park","tag-brooklyn-park-athletic-association","tag-gus-macker","tag-minnesota-chill-foundation","tag-minnesota-state-university","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-park-center","tag-the-sun-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}