New Website Celebrates D.C.'s Rich Basketball History

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) January 14, 2008 -- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Bijan C. Bayne
(202) 280-9244
bijanc@hotmail.com


DCBasketball.com Celebrates Capital's Rich Basketball History
New Website is Virtual Museum of Washington Area Basketball

JAN. 15, 2008- WASHINGTON, D.C.- Washington, D.C. has a rich and storied basketball tradition, from its top schoolboy programs to natives who were innovators and All-Americans. No other metropolitan area of similar size has contributed as much to the game. The new webpage, DCBasketball.com, honors this tradition by chronicling the great administrators, players, scholastic teams, and amateur leagues in the Washington metropolitan area. From Dr. Edwin B. Henderson, the architect of urban and YMCA basketball in the mid-Atlantic, to Elgin Baylor, who influenced subsequent aerial artists such as Connie Hawkins and Julius Erving (which in turn led to Michael Jordan), and Morgan Wootten, the only high school basketball coach in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall Fame, the city's mark on the game is indelible. Noted figures such as Dr. Charles Drew, media and tennis executive Donald Dell, Vice President Al Gore, longtime Notre Dame President Edward "Monk" Malloy, and television personalities Maury Povich and James Brown played their high school basketball in D.C. So did football stars Len Ford, Jake Scott, Willie Wood, Shawne Merriman, Byron Leftwich, Cato June and Jerry Porter. It was a Washington squad, DeMatha High School, which ended the 71-game winning streak of the 1965 Power Memorial team led by Lew Alcindor (later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar). No high school has produced more professional players than DeMatha. D.C.'s Spingarn High is the only public school in American to have two players named to the NBA's Fifty Greatest Players list in 1997 (Baylor and Dave Bing). More recently, Kevin Durant of Prince George's County, Md. became the first freshman to win all of college basketball's significant Player of the Year awards- the Naismith, the John Wooden and the Oscar Robertson. This season, Durant's former AAU teammate, freshman Michael Beasley of Kansas State is averaging 25 points and 13 rebounds a game, and is projected as a Top Five NBA draft pick should he choose to leave school in 2008. The tradition lives on.

The webpage details the feats and records of such players, allows fans and former players to submit their treasured schoolyard, summer league, and scholastic basketball memories, names all-time local teams, and lists D.C. area players named PARADE high school All-American, college All-American, and other honors. DCBasketball's mission is to encourage local youth to see basketball as a door to a wider world, athletic or otherwise, and provide a network of former (and current) players to facilitate those opportunities. Coming attractions include a podcast show about D.C. area basketball, past and present, and a blog. The organization, founded by former Parkdale (Md.) High All-Met guard and University South Florida star Pennington "Penny" Greene and former McKinley Tech player, Rutgers, and Atlanta Hawk guard John Battle, will host awards banquets, career fairs, a cruise with the legends, basketball instructionial clinics, and schedule regional school visits. The website serves as museum, educational tool, interactive community, and news source.


For more information, go to www.dcbasketball.com, which will launch on January 17, 2008.

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