By CURTIS ROCKWELL

GULFPORT — The prestigious Admiral Hardwood Club Holiday Classic celebrates its 40th year this week.
The annual affair tips off Thursday afternoon in Bert Jenkins Gym on the Gulfport High campus and features four games each day Thursday-Saturday. Thursday’s opening game is set for 4:30 p.m.
As it pretty much always has been throughout its long and storied history, the event is a true tournament-style format where winners players winners and losing teams face losing teams until a champion through seventh place squad is decided on the final day of action.
What’s different this season, however, is the composition of the field for the 40th annual affair, as unlike in all past 39 tourneys there is only one squad from the Mississippi Gulf Coast and the “Southern Six” region playing and that’s the host Admirals of course.

Teams competing this year are Gulfport, and three other teams from the Magnolia State in Raymond, Terry, and Olive Branch as well as Windermere Prep (Fla.), Zachary (La.), Princeton (Ohio) and Marion (Ark.).
“This year we kind of wanted to make it like Mississippi vs. the world,” second-year GHS Athletic Director Matt Walters said recently.

The event always in the past had at least half of the field featuring some very good South Mississippi and especially hometown Coast teams competing for the illustrious tourney title matched-up against other visiting teams from across Mississippi as well as frequently a few out-of-state squads every year as well.
For example, even as recently as last season, Gulfport, Pascagoula, Harrison Central, Moss Point and Picayune comprised over half of the field while Meridian, Madison Central, and Metamora, Ill.
While the first Admiral Hardwood Club Holiday Classic took place in 1983 as an all-boys event but the “Holiday Classic” hosted by Gulfport and first began in 1978 when Redemptorist High out of Baton Rouge, La., beat Pascagoula 57-45 for the boys’ title and Harrison Central beat George County 41-40 in overtime for the girls tourney title.
The first form of what became the now long-standing Admiral Hardwood Holiday Classic came in 1983, and featured the defending Class AA state champion Gulfport as well as Biloxi, Stone County, Bentonia and Northeast Jones were among the teams involved. Northeast Jones was led by one of the top players in the state at that time, 6-foot-7 power forward Kenny Payne. Bentonia was led by Rod Barnes, who went on to star at Ole Miss and eventually became the head coach for the Rebels as well.
Payne went on to start at the University of Louisville and today is the head coach of the Cardinals.

In 1987, perhaps the finest collection of individual talent ever assembled for the tourney was on display at historic B. Frank Brown Gym on U.S. Highway 90 in Gulfport when the host Admirals with Prep All-American Chris Jackson hosted Litterial Green, Melvin Booker and Moss Point, Brad Smith and Mendenhall as well as eventual Louisiana state champion Brother Martin out of New Orleans and the Pascagoula Panthers which featured Tony Harvey, Dale Brown and a host of other standouts.
In the opening game of the event, Green poured in a career-high 56 points but Smith countered with 33 and Mendenhall pulled out a thrilling 85-82 win. Green tallied 26 of his game-high total in the fourth quarter.
Green averaged 45 points per game in the Tigers’ three games in the tourney.
In the tourney title game that same year, Jackson poured in a game-high 41 points while Brown countered with 29 for Pascagoula as the Admirals took home the crown with an exciting 90-84 win before a standing-room-only crowd of over 2,500 frenzied fans.
Of course, Jackson, Green, Booker, Harvey, Brown and Smith all went on to play in the NBA.
Booker’s son, Devin also played for Moss Point in the event. He is currently one of the top players in the NBA as a three-time All-Star with the Phoenix Suns.
Also, over the years, the event showcased other future NBA players in Picayune’s Jonathan Bender, Jackson Murrah’s James Robinson, Quitman’s Anthonio McDyess and Al Jefferson of Prentiss just to name a few.