FILE PHOTO
Tommy Rijo of English looks to race past Jake Gustin of Peabody in a match up between the two teams in last year’s Elmo F. Benedetto boys basketball jamboree.
By STEVE KRAUSE
There will not be an Elmo F. Benedetto boys basketball jamboree next month.
However, the Paul Duchane girls basketball jamboree is still on, and scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 10, at Classical. The Northeastern Conference hockey jamboree will be held Dec. 4 at Salem State.
Tom Grassa, the boys basketball coach at Classical, said Friday he had to pull the plug on the fundraiser, which was named after Lynn’s late athletic director, for a variety of reasons.
Some of them could not be helped, he said. Three of the schools he’d invited to the jamboree — which would have been held Friday, Dec. 9 — had already scheduled regular-season games for that night. Two others — Marblehead and Everett (which had been annual participants) — had several players whose commitments to the football Super Bowls would preclude them from taking part in a week’s worth of basketball practices.
“You don’t want to have a kid who has just finished playing their 12th or 13th football game, and has missed a whole week of tryouts, to be playing that soon,” said Grassa. “So that eliminated those schools.”
As for any other sentiments, Grassa said, “some schools think it’s kind of a waste of time to come down here to play two eight-minute periods when they can schedule a scrimmage for two hours and get a good look at their players.”
Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association rules prohibit scheduling scrimmages and participating in jamborees on the same day.
Benedetto, who died in 1985, was the athletic director for the entire City of Lynn. He was known as a man who made it a priority to find as many colleges for students as he could, saying, “there’s a college for every kid.”
Further, Benedetto was a direct link to the Harry Agganis era, and helped get the Agganis Foundation — established upon the Lynn athletic legend’s death in 1955 — off the ground. One of the foundation’s five Hall of Fame awards is named in his honor.
Former Lynn English baseball and basketball coach Ron Bennett, the inaugural recipient of the Benedetto Athletics Award in 1999, founded the Benedetto jamboree in 1986, the year after Benedetto’s death.
Grassa said interest has waned over the years in the jamboree as coaches have begun to prefer other ways to get their teams ready for game action.
“I remember back when it started (at the old Lynn English gym), the place was packed,” Grassa said. “I remember we had the fire marshal in there threatening to shut us down because we were over the maximum capacity.
“Now,” he said, “I can’t recall when I’ve seen a big crowd where we’ve even had to pull out the auxiliary bleachers.”
The jamboree was established as a scholarship fundraiser for Lynn high school students and, again, said Grassa, funds raised for that purpose had dwindled to almost half of what they were when the event began.
“We just decided it wasn’t worth doing,” Grassa said. “It’s sad, but I guess some things run their course.”
The Duchane jamboree will begin at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 10., with Marblehead playing Malden, followed by Swampscott vs. Somerville (3:10), Saugus vs. Medford (3:50), Danvers vs. Hamilton-Wenham (4:30), Peabody vs. Reading (5:10), Revere vs. Fenwick (6:50), English vs. Georgetown (6:30) and Classical vs. Masconomet (7:10).
Tom Sawyer, who has organized the event since former athletic director Dick Ruth retired, is still very enthused about having it.
“First, it’s a scholarship fundraiser,” he said. “And you get to honor the legacy of Paul Duchane, for which the jamboree is named.”
Duchane taught at both English and Classical, and was a former football coach for the Bulldogs. At the time of his death, he was an assistant football coach at Matignon, and died of a heart attack while coaching a game at Bishop Fenwick.
“This is as close as you’re going to get to a real game in preseason,” said Sawyer. “You have referees, you wear uniforms, there are timeouts, things like that. You’re not going to get any closer to real game action.
“Younger players get experience,” he said, “and older players get to shake the rust off a little bit.”
On Dec. 4, at Salem State, the Northeastern Conference hockey jamboree kicks off at 11 a.m. with Saugus against Winthrop. Lynn vs. Peabody (12:30) is next, followed by Swampscott vs. Marblehead (2), Revere vs. Beverly (3:30) and Essex Tech vs. Rockport (5).
“I like the jamboree,” said Joe Conlon, head coach of the Lynn Jets. “I’m not sure you learn a lot from anybody, but it gives you a chance to go through game-day operations. From that point of view, it’s good.”
Steve Krause can be reached at [email protected].