Tournament offers local hoopsters shot at nationals

By Jeff Kolpack

June 02, 2005 at 11:00 PM

Other than a local driveway in Hillsboro, N.D., Jayne Keller's summer basketball options consisted of a college camp and the North Dakota Prairie Rose State Games.

It was typical routine for young players in the 1990s. It was if playing in a nationally-recognized tournament was forbidden.

"I would have loved to have a chance to play in an AAU tournament," said Keller, a former North Dakota State standout known then as Jayne Boeddeker.

Local players now have that chance without driving several hours. An AAU girls basketball Super Regional gets underway tonight at Fargo South and Fargo Oak Grove high schools and runs through Sunday.

The winner of each division earns a qualification ticket for the National AAU Championships.

Keller is coaching a 15-and-under team called the Bad Bunnies, a group of players from area schools Central Cass, Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton, Oak Grove, Shanley and Discovery Junior High.

"No. 1, it's nice to play in your home town," Keller said.

The tournament is the brainchild of Cal Schaible, a western North Dakota farm owner who is establishing a amateur athletic company intent on exposing young kids to national competition. This weekend's inaugural Super Regional has 18 teams, most of which are from the immediate area with the exception of one team from St. Paul and one from St. Cloud, Minn.

Team attendance is less than Schaible had hoped. He said the tournament can handle 30 teams - six teams in five age categories.

"We're trying to build a base," he said.

He said he plans on meeting with team representatives following the tournament to get their feedback on a future event.

"We keep trying to figure out what would be the best date," Schaible said. "In talking with some of the Minnesota folks, maybe early May would be better."

AAU has 62 girls Super Regionals scheduled across the country beginning in early March and ending this weekend. Other cities hosting this weekend are Georgetown, Texas, Columbia, S.C., Springdale, Ark., Sellersburg, Ind., Slippery Rock, Pa., and Kinston, N.C.

Schaible said he's "pretty sure" Fargo will get another Super Regional next year.

"We're definitely interested in continuing," he said.

Readers can reach Forum reporter Jeff Kolpack at (701) 241-5546

By Jeff Kolpack

Jeff would like to dispel the notion he was around when Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, but he is on his third decade of reporting with Forum Communications. The son of a reporter and an English teacher, and the brother of a reporter, Jeff has worked at the Jamestown Sun, Bismarck Tribune and since 1990 The Forum, where he's covered North Dakota State athletics since 1995.
Jeff has covered all nine of NDSU's Division I FCS national football titles and has written three books: "Horns Up," "North Dakota Tough" and "Covid Kids." He is the radio host of "The Golf Show with Jeff Kolpack" April through August.