AAR Invitational: Greensboro Holiday Tradition Thrives
More than four decades ago, seven Greensboro Sports Council men had a vision: bring Greensboro’s high school basketball teams together for a holiday tournament and donate the proceeds to the schools. It sounded like a pretty good idea when the inaugural AAR Invitational presented by the Greensboro Convention & Visitors Bureau was played back in 1976, and it’s an idea that still sounds pretty good today.
Jim Betts, Lem Cox, Bradley Faircloth, Stanley Frank, Doug Galyon, Fred Joseph and E. Kemp Reece not only envisioned a tournament that would help fund the schools’ athletic programs, they created it. At that time, First Horizon Coliseum hosted the Big 4 Tournament, an annual affair among Duke, NC State, North Carolina and Wake Forest. These seven Sports Council visionaries realized they could make their vision a reality if they created a similar event among Greensboro’s four city high schools, Dudley, Grimsley, Page and Smith, and in 1976, the Little 4 was born.
When Grimsley played Page and Dudley faced Smith in the first tournament games Dec. 28, 1976, organizers knew they had four good men’s basketball teams, and they knew that with strong support from the community, they’d be able to return $5,000 to each of the four schools. As it turned out, the event drew nearly 4,000 high school hoops fans to the Greensboro Complex each night. Not bad for a holiday tournament that was no sure thing.
The Greensboro Sports Council started the tournament as a two-day playoff, but it didn't take long to expand the field to eight schools and to add a women’s tournament to the program. Despite changes along the way, the basics and mission of the event remained, and the holiday tournament’s popularity and significance were strong.
Today, the AAR Invitational is just that: an invitational tournament. The Greensboro Sports Council can invite different schools from year-to-year as long as they are located in or around Guilford County. The mission remains, and the tournament thrives.
In addition to donating funds back to the schools, the Greensboro Sports Council awards four Bill Lee Scholarships to participating student athletes each year, and the Council makes charitable contributions as well.
Some previous recipients of charitable donations made in honor of outgoing tournament chairs are Ready for School, Ready for Life, Out of the Garden Project, Goodwill Industries, Greensboro Urban Ministries, Backpack Beginnings, the American Cancer Society’s Coaches vs. Cancer, Friends for an Earlier Breast Cancer Test, Joseph’s House, the Eastern Guilford High School Fund, the Joey Cheek Fund, the North Carolina State Games, the Girls and Boys Club, The First Tee of the Triad, Bryan Family YMCA, the Salvation Army, Youth Focus and the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.
While the AAR Invitational has evolved through the years, the original mission remains – support high schools in or around Guilford County. Deep community roots planted in a different century grow stronger each autumn when the familiar sounds of basketball shoes squeaking on high school hardwoods return - the AAR Invitational must be on the horizon.
Note: Former Greensboro News & Record writer Jeff Carlton contributed to this tournament history before his death in 2008. The Greensboro Sports Council will always be grateful to Jeff for his many contributions to the AAR Invitational and Guilford County high school sports.