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City Spends an Afternoon in Gus Macker’s Driveway

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The sign at the outskirts read “Mackerville, U.S.A.”

Mackerville?

Isn’t that a place in Michigan, where some guys stage something called the world’s foremost 3-on-3 basketball tournament every summer?

This was an early Saturday morning in January, and it didn’t seem cold enough to be Michigan. If it had been, people would have spent half the morning shoveling the snow off their driveway before they could shoot. It would take 10 or 11 baskets before the net would loosen up enough so you wouldn’t need a broom handle to get the ball out.

No, it wasn’t Michigan. People were playing in shorts, and there was no ice on the courts. But the parking lot at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium was still Mackerville. Site of the “First Annual One and Only Heartbeat of America, Gus Macker fer Sure, All-Shamu, All-PAL, All-World, All-Galaxy, All-Universe, Thirst Quenchin’ Invitational Takin’ It to the Hoop Three-on-Three Outdoor Backyard Style Call Your Own U.B.U. at the home of the Chargers and the Padres Charity Basketball Tournament.”

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Scott McNeal spent many winter afternoons like this in tiny Lowell, Mich., when he was growing up. He also spent many hours negotiating the cracks in his parents’ driveway and a drooping limb from a crab apple tree.

“Part of my life was spent playing in my parents’ driveway,” said McNeal, 32.

Three-on-three became McNeal’s game. During spring break in 1974, McNeal got together with 17 friends who tossed $1 each into a hat, and the winning team split $18. That was the simple birth of the Gus Macker tournament.

“From that day forward I think the biggest crowd I ever had in my mom’s yard was somewhere around 6,000 basketball players on one weekend,” McNeal said.

McNeal is Gus Macker, a nickname from a junior high classmate. The tournament bearing this name has been played every year since, growing not only out of the McNeal’s driveway but completely out of Lowell. For the past 2 years, it has picked up a travel agent and has gone on a national tour that will double to 20 cities next year.

It has grown so popular that the McNeals decided to bring it to San Diego for their final 1988 stop. San Diego, the town that can’t hold down an NBA team and hardly supports its three Division I college teams. Nonetheless, here it is, Gus Macker’s driveway plopped down in the stadium parking lot for the weekend.

Gus says it’s doing just fine.

By Saturday at 7 a.m., eager players began showing up, ready to delve into Macker Mania. Thirty-six courts neatly cluttered the eastern section of the parking lot. The backboards all were decorated with the top-hat doffing Macker Man.

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By 8:30, Mitch McNeal readied to play the national anthem, the classic Marvin Gaye version, sung once at an NBA All-Star game. But wait . . . no tape.

“Ask ‘Sweet’ Lance about it,” Mitch said disgustedly.

“I left it in my girlfriend’s car,” said Lance Bryan, who grew up with the Macker in Lowell.

Where?

“Michigan.”

No anthem.

Forging ahead, nearly 300 teams of four players each (one sub) spent a part of their Saturday playing 3-on-3. An estimated 1,000 others were there to watch, walk their dog or run into an old high school or pick-up partner somewhere among the crowd.

“This is great,” said Mark Bonner, a former Helix High and Grossmont College player. “I’ve seen people I haven’t seen in a long time.”

That’s what the Macker is all about. You don’t have to be an ex-star to play here. Most aren’t. There’s a division with kids from the Police Athletic League (PAL) and another with folks 40 and over. The youngest Mackers are 10-year-olds Maria Brunker and Jamie Brossard of San Diego. The oldest is George Weida, 52, of Rancho Santa Fe. There are many in between, of all skill levels and backgrounds.

Each team paid $50 to play. They were put into divisions through a computer-matching system that considered age, height and skill level. Half the fee goes back into the Macker, the other half to charity, the San Diego PAL in this case. For their money, each player received a T-shirt, squeeze bottle and guarantee of 3 games.

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The sun was out. Rain--a constant, major fear--was far away. Continuous music--with one of the McNeals or marketing director Steve Project as DJ--included such appropriate tunes as Cheech and Chong’s “Basketball Jones” and Kurtis Blow’s rap, “Basketball.”

The official Gus Macker 3-on-3 basketballs were maroon and gold.

“I think this is a fabulous idea,” said Leroy Dailey of the San Diego Police, who worked as a court monitor called Gus Buster. “There is basketball abound. Everywhere you look, nothing but basketball playing and some serious bricks being thrown. They always said that San Diego was never a hoops town, but by the show of all these basketball maniacs here, I would say that basketball is alive and well in our city.”

Gus Macker, who often slipped off for a game on court 1A, couldn’t have agreed more.

“For the limited amount of pre-tournament promotion we had, it seems like there are a lot more teams than what you would think,” he said. “Three hundred teams is a lot when you take that into consideration and that college and high school players can’t play (because they are in season). This is a pretty good crowd. For the first year out, it’s a pretty good indication of what will happen in the future.”

Cory Dunkirk, a 7-year transplant from Minneapolis who is the director at the Pacific Beach recreation center, thinks the San Diego Macker could be huge.

“This to me is a great turnout,” he said, “but it’s not what we could have. We don’t have that much military, and we don’t have fraternity and sorority divisions. It seems like this is the best thing that’s ever happened with basketball in San Diego.”

Former NBA Coach Jack Ramsay, now working for Macker-sponsor Reebok, took center stage around midday during a break to speak and conduct a clinic.

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“I think (the Macker) represents really what basketball is about,” Ramsay told a moderate gathering while non-tournament games continued on many of the courts. “Basketball has become a pretty sophisticated game, but the grass roots of basketball are right out here.”

Dick McNeal, Scott’s father, said he was neither a basketball player nor a fan before his sons began this craziness 15 years ago. Saturday, he walked around picking litter off the stadium parking lot and putting it in barrels.

“I used to pick the trash up out of my yard,” he explained, shrugging off the habit.

Dick and Bonnie McNeal saw the Macker spawn in their driveway. Now they watch and travel along, helping however possible, as this Gus Macker character drags their driveway all over the country.

Renee, Scott’s wife, has watched since 1984.

“I’m going to be a father in July,” Gus said. “I know my mom has dreamed this would come true. She’s hoping that (my baby) will become a Gus Macker person that puts this thing on in my driveway when I get older.”

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