Audio clip
John Iamarino
Rick Hart, John Iamarino and Merrill Eckstein watched the recent Southern Conference tournament with an eye on improvement.
The tournament will return to Chattanooga’s McKenzie Arena to cap the next two basketball seasons after a successful experience in 2005.
Hart, Iamarino and Eckstein observed the recent event in the North Charleston Coliseum from different perspective.
Hart, the athletics director at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, watched game operation. Iamarino, the SoCon commissioner, observed everything thing from the hospitality room to the awards ceremony. Eckstein, president of the Greater Chattanooga Sports and Events committee, took notes on tournament management.
“There’s great enthusiasm for the tournament, and Charleston has been a great location for it,” Eckstein said. “The way we respond is to give them a much better tournament and treat everybody better so that their experience in Chattanooga is better than their experience in Charleston.”
The tournament experience in Chattanooga could improve from 2005 for the players with better locker rooms, for the sponsors with better hospitality and for fans with festival seating.
“We need to get our reports from the last time we hosted this to refresh our memory on the feedback we got and address every issue,” Hart said. “We want to make sure its the best experience possible for players, spectators, officials, the community and the alumni.”
The event has spent the last two years in Charleston and six overall. The event has also been held in Greenville, S.C., Greensboro, N.C., and Asheville, N.C., since 1984.
A committee of athletic directors select the location based on bids provided by organizations including the GCSEC and the Charleston Metro Sports Council. The committee will meet sometime this year to select sites for 2011-2013.
“One of the things we’ll do different is that we’ll be more aggressive in sitting down and talking with other communities,” Iamarino said, mentioning Greenville, Charlotte and Winston-Salem. “I can’t imagine us not coming back to Charleston. I imagine it will always be in the rotation.”
Every tournament since 1984 has been held on a neutral court except for the 2005 tournament which UTC’s men won. Coaches are opposed to competing in a team’s home arena, but the trend may continue again in 2011 if the tournament moves to the Carolina First Center in Charleston, which will be home of the Cougars.
“I understand Chattanooga’s sports council made a bid of $125,000, which was in excess of what the people of Charleston made,” Davidson coach Bob McKillop said. “I’m going to take two guarantee games for $90,000 each and take my $180,000 and bid to have the tournament in Belk Arena so I’ll out-bid Chattanooga.”
David Uchiyama is a sports writer at the Chattanooga Times Free Press who began his tenure here in May 2001. His primary beats are UTC athletics — specifically men’s basketball and athletic department administration — and golf, which includes coverage from the PGA Tour to youth events. He also covers other high school sports, outdoor adventures, and contributes to other sections of the newspaper when necessary. David grew up in Salinas, Calif., and began working ...
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