Sad to See How High School Basketball Tourney is Playing in Peoria

Security Concerns Lead to Limited Crowds for City's Class 3A Boys Regional

Peoria has long been a great basketball town.

Bradley has a tremendous tradition with legends including Chet “The Jet” Walker, Hersey Hawkins and the sideline flamboyance of Dick Versace. Interest in the program has been rekindled as it meets Drake for the Missouri Valley Conference regular-season title Sunday at the Peoria Civic Center’s Carver Arena.

High school boys and girls basketball has a rich history filled with great teams and players. Before the IHSA upset the traditionalists among us (present company included) by going from two to four classes, the boys state tournaments created a huge buzz in town and played to packed or near-capacity houses in Carver Arena.

Admittedly, we’re a little biased in this space about hoops in Peoria from attending Bradley during the four glorious Hawkins years and covering high school basketball in the late ‘80s when the big games were moved to the school’s venerable Robertson Memorial Field House to accommodate the huge crowds.

So, it was painful to see the news this week that the Class 3A regional hosted by Peoria High, featuring the city’s four largest high schools, had to make schedule adjustments and impose attendance restrictions because of safety concerns. The Wednesday semifinals were played at 4:30 and 6 p.m. and Friday’s championship between Richwoods and Manual will start at 5:30, according to a story by the Peoria Journal Star’s Adam Duvall.

Participants in the games - players, coaches, cheerleaders and administrators - were given 5 tickets apiece for family and friends. Employees of the four high schools could purchase a ticket at the gate for themselves and a guest. The general public was not going to be admitted to the games.

There were some students in attendance in the video of the regional highlights (just before the 1-minute mark) by Hoffman Estates grad Kurt Pegler, who has covered sports for 36 years at Peoria’s CBS affiliate WMBD-TV. But the crowd definitely looks a bit sparse considering this is truly a local regional that doesn’t require the insane travel of some others in the state.

“The district was alerted of some dangerous events that happened in the community over the weekend,” Peoria High AD Brien Dunphy told Duvall. “I believe the (Peoria Police Department) is worried about the neighborhood and this is a big event. The city’s concern was just to keep everyone safe.”

Duvall wrote that Peoria Police Chief Eric Echevarria said that three gunfire incidents in the last two weeks led to the abundance of caution. Echevarria said the incidents didn’t involve any students from any of the four schools and there were no direct threats to the schools or the regional tournament.

My friend Nick Vlahos, literally the biggest man in Peoria media for years at 6-foot-8 before he retired last year from the Journal Star, is also a huge hoops fan who weighed in on the sad state of affairs on Facebook.

“It's ridiculous and embarrassing things have come to this point in Peoria,” Vlahos wrote. “The days of packing 7,000 people without incident into Robertson Field House for the Peoria Sectional seem a million miles away.”

Those were incredible times where Manual and Central (as Peoria High was referred to then) even played their regular-season games before 5,000 or more at Robertson. It was a great mix of intensity, high-level talent on the court, legendary coaches in Manual’s Dick Van Scyoc and Central’s Chuck Buescher and fan and media interest. I think my ears are still ringing from some of those games 35 years later.

In ‘88, Central was ranked No. 1 but it’s second loss of the season came in the sectional final to No. 9 Manual. The Rams, with future DePaul star David Booth and freshman phenom Howard Nathan, went on to finish third in the state.

A year later, Central was ranked No. 2 and beat No. 8 Manual in the sectional semifinals. A Lions’ team led by point guard Chris Reynolds, the current leader of Bradley athletics and the chair of this year’s NCAA tournament selection committee, was unbeaten until East St. Louis Lincoln’s Chris McKinney hit a 19-footer at the buzzer of the third overtime in the state championship game.

Those games between Peoria rivals were one of the toughest tickets in town for all the right reasons. It’s tough to see it become such a difficult one to get for all the wrong ones.