Holding Court : Ex-Pro-Turned-Coach, Former 49ers Compete Against Back-Yard Stars in Outdoor 3-on-3 Basketball Tourney

Butch Carter, who played in the National Basketball Assn. with the Lakers, Indiana and New York, exhibited a pro’s cool, effortless grace as he competed in the Gus Macker 3-on-3 Tournament last weekend at Cal State Long Beach.

Carter encountered some strong competition in the tourney, billed as the “world’s largest pickup game,” but he also faced players far below his level. None, though, seemed in awe of Carter, and all took him on as if they had something to prove.

He would go along at what seemed like half-speed and then suddenly make a quick, multi-fake move and drive to the basket past a player who had begun to get cocky.

“You try not to let ego get involved,” said Carter, 30, a new assistant coach at CSULB who played at Indiana University and was a 6-foot-5 guard for the Lakers, Knicks and Pacers from 1980 to 1985. “People expect a pro to perform well, and I’ve got enough pride to want to perform decently. I can show that people can’t guard me.”

On Team With 2 Former 49ers

In the tournament, Carter was on a team in the top division with former CSULB players Mel Braxton and Tony Ronzone.

Division breakdowns were made according to age, height and experience to even the competition. Games were played to 20, with 1 point awarded for each field goal or free throw and 2 for a basket made from a distance of 20 or more feet.

Most of the participants who made up the more than 85 teams were not former pro or college stars but those who seek glory in the shirts-skins games of back yards and YMCAs. They played scrappily in the half-court, call-your-own-fouls contests. Only in the top-division games were referees provided.

Mike Mortensen, 41, of Paramount, one of the oldest players in the tournament, hustled around the court in blue sweat clothes, but to no avail--his team lost all four of its games.

“I just play to get a workout,” said Mortensen, who never played competitively on an organized team.

Originated in Home Driveway

The Gus Macker 3-on-3 Tournament originated in 1974 in the Lowell, Mich., driveway of Scott McNeal, who was nicknamed Gus Macker--for no apparent reason--while in the seventh grade. McNeal and 17 friends were in that tournament, which has grown to such proportions that this summer in Belding, Mich., it attracted more than 10,000 players from 42 states and 3 countries, and received national TV coverage.

Cal State Long Beach, where 26 baskets were set up on a university parking lot, was one of 10 stops on the tournament’s national tour. Some of the proceeds--the entry fee was $50 per team--will go to the CSULB men’s basketball scholarship fund.

“We came down expecting to get hacked up and that there would be a lot of yelling and screaming, but there are a lot of good sports here,” said Carl Engelbrecht, 26, of Pasadena, who was on a team of aerospace engineers.

“We all played in high school,” said the 6-5 Engelbrecht, who held a trophy that featured a miniature toilet bowl. His team won the comeback trophy for winning two games after losing its first two.

After their games were over, the average players would line the court where the top-division games were played and get a close-up look at players they may have heard about or even watched on television.

A Star in New Zealand

Ronzone, one of Carter’s teammates, quit the 49ers last year to play professionally in New Zealand and expects to play this season with the professional Los Angeles Jaguars in a new 6-foot-4-and-under league. He said he was a star in New Zealand and had his own newspaper column and radio show. Ronzone’s speed was as effective on asphalt as it is on hardwood floors--he repeatedly blew past opponents--but his outside shot, as it was when he was in college, was inconsistent.

Another imposing team in the tournament was led by Joedy Gardner, a 49er star guard in 1983-84. Now a real estate appraiser, Gardner is 15 pounds heavier and no longer has the bleached hair and golden tan he sported in his college days.

But Gardner, 28, who was cut by the Houston Rockets in 1984, proved he can still play and that his competitive drive is as fierce as ever.

His opponents last weekend could never be sure whether Gardner would shoot his outside jumper or drive like a madman to the basket.

“I’ve still got the moves,” Gardner said.

Competition Generated Sparks

Gardner teamed with Mike Moore, a former player at San Jose State, and Johnny Griffin, who completed his college career last season at Biola University.

When Gardner’s team played Carter’s, sparks flew. Griffin, a 20-points-per-game scorer at Biola, kept complaining loudly to the referees--and to Carter--that Carter was fouling him. The two players constantly clashed beneath the basket and once Griffin banged into Carter and knocked him off the court.

Carter, though, kept his composure. He had said before the game that he expected such aggression from players not at his level: “That’s always the way it is on the playground. Those players have nothing to lose, that’s why they are on the playground. They can’t play with officials. That’s why a lot of guys don’t advance to the next level.”

Carter won the game with a driving lay-up, then punched the air and yelled, “Bingo.”

Griffin, leaving the court, said: “He’s Butch, I guess he gets to do what he wants.”

But Carter’s team lost its next game and was eliminated from the tournament. A team from Arizona, which had three 6-8 players, eventually won.