Midnight basketball tournament continues in Belize City
The National Male Basketball Team may have left for the Central American and Caribbean Games, but the championship fever has not died. The Belize Youth Development Department has been seeking out some future stars by holding a series of midnight marathons. From July twenty-ninth to the thirty-first, six teams made up of sixteen to nineteen year olds gathered at Militia Hall and Belize Technical College to show off their skills and fight to the finish for trophies. According to Director the Youth Department, Louise Smith, the midnight basketball marathons were so successful that they are planning more.
Louise Smith, Director, Youth Department
“We are planning on the twenty-second August, Individual Trophies Marathon all day at Belize Technical College and we’re inviting all these young people to come whether they participated or not, to come to this all day marathon.
We call it midnight because it goes passed midnight. It starts at seven but, you know Belize time, so it usually starts at eight and then it runs all the way because there are six teams. It runs all the way pass eleven o’clock. So that is the reason we call it midnight basketball.”
Q: “Is it really popular with the kids?”
Louise Smith
“Oh yes it is, it is very interesting to see them play because they want to win that trophy. Everyone keeps saying I want that trophy, it is going to be on my mantel, it is going to be on my bookshelf. And so the enthusiasm encourages us and gives us the feeling that there is more of this that is needed. So the games on the twenty second are going to be successful and rewarding for the young people.”
Young persons interested in participating in the Individual Trophies Marathon are asked to sign up at the Belize Technical College after nine on the morning of August twenty-second.
