| Pigeon
Forge, TN – March 2015 / Newsmaker Alert / Pigeon Forge will
add another sport, basketball, to its youth sports resume when the National
Youth Basketball League brings a 96-team tournament to town May 22-24.
Thirteen regulation-size
basketball courts will be set up inside the LeConte
Center at Pigeon Forge for teams of boys in the sixth, seventh and
eighth grades.
“Our league is three years
old, and we’re doubling our tournament schedule. Pigeon Forge is a big
part of that growth and joins tournaments in Washington, D.C., and Richmond,
Va., before a championship tournament in Columbus, Ohio,” said league founder
Dameon Key.
Key said the league’s purpose
is to improve grassroots basketball at the junior high level by providing
a challenging series of tournaments for elite boys’ travel teams.
“This is a major event on
many levels,” said Leon Downey, executive director of the Pigeon
Forge Department of Tourism.
“First, it represents a large
number of visitors for us. Second, it’s our first major foray into youth
basketball. Third, it’s a totally new use of the LeConte Event Center,”
he said.
The basketball courts will
fill the 100,500-square-foot LeConte Hall, the building’s central space.
Previous uses have included tradeshows, faith-based conferences, gymnastics
competitions and the National Quartet Convention.
|
Thirteen full-size basketball
courts will fill the main space of the LeConte Event Center.
|
“We set LeConte Hall with
a massive stage and almost 12,000 chairs for people to enjoy the concerts
of the National Quartet Convention. It’s going to be amazing to see the
same location filled with basketball courts,” Downey noted.
The court, goals and tournament
housing organization will be provided by Travel Courts, a tournament expo
company in Salt Lake City, Utah.
“We can create a gymnasium
environment almost anywhere that the structural logistics make sense –
from hotel ballrooms to convention centers – anywhere with enough square
footage and ceiling height. The flooring works for any indoor sport, and
I’m sure it will be quite a sight inside the LeConte Event Center,” said
Aimee Roberts, president of Travel Courts.
Key said the teams will come
mostly from eastern states but that the league has teams throughout the
U.S. and in Canada.
“Each team will play five
games, and I’m sure many teams will schedule extra time to enjoy the attractions
of Pigeon Forge,” Key said.
Teams have 10 to 12 boys,
plus coaches and parents, so the entire event may bring 2,500 or more people
to Pigeon Forge.
Pigeon Forge’s youth sports
activity will increase substantially when the six-stadium $22.5 million
Ripken
Baseball Experience opens in 2016.
Details about the LeConte
Event Center are at LeConteCenter.com,
and information about visiting Pigeon Forge is at MyPigeonForge.com.
|
Contacts:
Tom
Adkinson, APR
for Pigeon Forge Department
of Tourism
615-341-8796
Dameon
Key
for National Youth Basketball
League
706-831-3109 |
