SPORTS

Former college stars, championships for Gaylord teams highlight Gus Macker's return

Dylan Jespersen
The Petoskey News-Review
Go North's Joey Brunk (right), former college basketball player for Butler, Indiana and Ohio State University plays defense during the Gus Macker Top Men's championship on Sunday, June 26 at the Otsego County Sportsplex in Gaylord.

GAYLORD — Gus Macker is a Michigan tradition, and is again a Gaylord tradition.

The Gus Macker tournament is the country’s premier 3-on-3 tournament, designed to allow players of all ages and genders to compete in a weekend-long event in one of the greatest and well-known variations of standard basketball

For 15 years, Gaylord played host to one of the many summer weekend tournaments, with 3-on-3 tournaments going on in the city starting in 1991. However, as the Gus Macker brand has grown, the tournament stopped coming to Gaylord, with the last played in the city happening in 2006.

Well, the long wait for Gus Macker’s return is over as the 3-on-3 tournament came to the Otsego County Sportsplex for the weekend of June 25-26, welcoming players from across the Midwest to Gaylord for the weekend.

With multiple different courts full of 3-on-3 basketball, free-throw and three-point contests going on and food trucks scattered around the Sportsplex’s parking lot, people of all ages were out to watch their friends, relatives and other basketball players get to work on the hot and sunny June weekend.

Throughout the two-day event, the Top Men’s court was the main attraction as the tournament featured multiple former college basketball stars, including Justin Edmonds, a member of the 2014-15 and 2015-16 Marshall Thundering Herd basketball teams, and Jevonte Hughes, a Kalamazoo native and former Charleston Golden Eagle.

However, the most competitive field was largely dominated by former Butler, Indiana and Ohio State star Joey Brunk, leading the Go North Properties team of himself, Collin Feilla, Kevin Scott and Johnny Jager to the first-place finish.

Joey Brunk throws down a dunk during a matchup at the Gaylord Gus Macker on Saturday, June 25 at the Otsego County Sportsplex in Gaylord.

The field was filled with local Gaylord athletes, and Gaylord teams Get N' Buckets, the Northern Ballers and the G Town Ballers all left with first-place hardware on Sunday.

Get N' Buckets was made up of Gaylord high schoolers Luke Gelow and Luke Enders as well as Cadillac’s Gavin Goetz and Hillman’s Trenton Taratuta, a conglomerate of prep talent from across Northern Michigan.

Gaylord's Luke Enders posts up against Gaylord St. Mary's Gavin Bebble during a matchup at the Gaylord Gus Macker on Saturday, June 25 at the Ostego County Sportsplex in Gaylord.

They took home the championship from Court I that included other Gaylord are prep stars, including an all-St. Mary’s team made up of Gavin Bebble, Brody Jeffers and Daniel Smith.

Other Gaylord winners included the Northern Ballers, a team made up of Addison McDonald, Karlee Pretzlaff, Marley Syzmoniak and Kaylin Weber who won Court G, and the G Town Ballers of Jack Korson, Westyn Boulter, Emmitt Dawe and Otis Dawe who won Court A.

Go North's Joey Brunk (right), former college basketball player for Butler, Indiana and Ohio State University plays defense during the Gus Macker Top Men's championship on Sunday, June 26 at the Otsego County Sportsplex in Gaylord.

The return of Gus Macker is largely thanks to Ostego County Sportsplex director James Vanderveer, a longtime basketball referee who plays a role in the Gaylord sports community.

"I am excited to have Gus Macker return to Gaylord,” Vanderveer said. “A tournament like this brings a lot of excitement to the community and to the sport of basketball. This will inspire young people to enjoy being outdoors with a basketball in their hand. This a great wholesome, fun event. I am thrilled to have it return to Gaylord.”

This is the 49th year of Gus Macker Basketball. For the first 13 years, it was a single tournament started by a pair of brothers and their friends in Lowell, Mich., in 1974, but it became a festival phenomenon and America’s Original 3-on-3 Basketball Tour in 1987.

There have been almost 1,500 sanctioned Gus Macker Tournaments presented for over 700,000 teams or almost 2.7 million players and played in front of almost 28 million spectators across the country in the tournament’s 49-year history.