The Morton Timber Tourney is turning 40 this year, but it will be no occasion for black balloons. Southwest Washington’s premier “town team” tournament will take place this weekend with the first game tipping off at 8 p.m. Friday night and the championship contest scheduled for 4:15 p.m. on Sunday afternoon.
And while the tournament may be now be older than some of its savvy veteran participants, the event still has fresh legs.
“It just runs. It’s really amazing to see,” said Doug Coleman, a longtime Morton resident and director of the tournament for the last 33 years. “We’ve just been doing it so long.”
Throughout the years the tournament — a fundraiser for Morton-White Pass Youth Athletics — has accumulated an impressive list of alumni. Local legends like Bill Bakamus and Casey Frandsen, and a whole host of Wallaces, have graced the Morton hardwood, but so, too, have future college and NBA stars, from all along the West Coast.
That list includes, but is by no means limited to, Centralia’s own former Seattle SuperSonic Detlef Schrempf, A.C. Green of the Showtime L.A. Lakers, and Michael Dickerson.
Coleman remembered when Dickerson, who played at the University of Arizona before an NBA career that included stints with the Lakers, Rockets and Grizzlies, showed up at the tournament.
“I went up to some guy and said, ‘Who’s this kid?’ He was way above the rim on everybody,” remembered Coleman.
Although out of town all-star teams have taken home the championship trophy on occasion, the hardware usually goes to a nearby “town team,” as the locals like to call them.
Frandsen, a Toutle Lake graduate who went on to star at the University of Portland, has been a fixture at the tournament throughout the years.
“He’s still a steady guy grinding it out for us,” said Coleman.
Frandsen first played in the Timber Tourney when he was a senior in high school and has since accumulated four team championships and two tournament MVP awards as a member of the Home Carpet Warehouse squad.
“This year will be (the) 12th year I've played in it,” said Frandsen in an email. “The first year I played was 2000, my senior year in high school. Then I went to University of Portland and NCAA rules don't allow athletes to play in tournaments not sanctioned by the NCAA so I didn't play again until I was out of college in 2005. But I've played every year from 2005 through this year.”
Bill Bakamus, a Morton High School graduate and Mark Morris High School’s well-decorated boys basketball coach, learned the hard way about those strict NCAA regulations during his own collegiate years.
“I probably played (in the tournament) when I was in high school,” Bakamus recalled, through the haze of time. “It was like my sophomore year in high school when it started and there weren’t a lot of rules back then about playing in these things in high school.”
Then, at the beginning of one of his collegiate seasons at the University of Puget Sound, Bakamus learned that the tournament — not sanctioned by the NCAA — was technically off-limits.
“We figured that since it was in Morton that nobody would know,” said Bakamus, who has a number of Timber Tourney championship trophies and MVP awards stuffed in a closet somewhere.
The next week Bakamus’ coach approached him and Brian Hopkins, who had also played in the Timber Tourney, at a team banquet.
“‘I heard you guys had a pretty good tournament last weekend,’” Bakamus recalled the coach telling him, before informing the pair that they’d have to serve an NCAA-imposed two-game ban and miss a team trip to Montana.
Bakamus laughed at the memory.
“It was kind of harsh treatment for participating in the illustrious Timber Tournament,” he said.
The fact that the “illustrious Timber Tournament” has grown to such great heights is a testimony to the raw passion for basketball that seems to courses through the veins of all who hail from the tiny burg of Morton.
“I think what turned the corner for all of us was in 1962, when we won the state championship,” postured Coleman, who noted that Billy “Sweety” Suter scored 42 points in that state championship game with the all-important caveat that there was no 3-point line.
Coleman confirmed that basketball is a town-wide obsession in Morton, and credited the weather for helping to nurture that environment.
“You’ve got to remember it rains here a whole bunch, and so where’s it dry?”
The answer, of course, is the gymnasium.
Coleman noted that Sunday night open gym basketball is a long standing tradition in the timber town.
“We don’t have a lot here and the gym is always open,” said Coleman. “Well, that or the asphalt.”
Bakamus, who grew up as the next door neighbor of Coleman in Morton, echoed those sentiments.
“I remember watching those old guys playing basketball with shaved heads, Chuck Taylors, and high socks,” said Bakamus. “The basketball community at Morton is just very special. You’re very proud of where you’re born and raised. Basketball is in the fiber of everybody’s soul up there.”
One of the defining qualities of the tournament is its hard-nosed, no-blood no-foul game play. Some people describe it as an “old man’s game,” but a revolving influx of youth prohibits that from being entirely true.
“I’ve seen some pretty hostile situations,” admitted Bakamus, who noted a “pretty fierce elbow” that once broke a competitor's nose but failed to keep him out of the game. “There is no whining in the Morton Timber Tourney. That’s a rule.”
Frandsen agreed with Bakamus’ assessment.
“Physical play is the big thing. Most guys in this tourney played four years of college basketball and many at the Division I level, so they know how physical it is,” he said. “In many ways the Timber Tourney is even more physical than the college level because these guys are a little older and a little slower so they play more physical to continue to compete.”
For his part, Coleman does all he can to keep things in check and ensure that cooler heads prevail.
“One of the things that I do that drives some of the guys crazy is I stop the game and charge $5 if a guy gets a technical. The game cannot go on until somebody pays,” laughed Coleman.
Hanging on the rim, too, qualifies as a Timber Tourney technical, and an instant $5 donation to the local youth sports fund.
Despite the ferocity of the play and the unbridled old man strength of many of the participants, all parties involved agree that it is a great environment for younger players to experience a little trial by fire.
“I always suggest playing against the best competition available. That's the only way to get better and get to that level,” said Frandsen, who owns and operates Next Step Basketball, a local youth basketball training program. “No specific age or talent level, just as long as you're big enough and strong enough one of these grown men aren't gonna put you into the wall.
“When I played for the first time as a senior in high school, I went in thinking I was playing against a bunch of old washed-up has-beens,” added Frandsen. “I was a little overconfident, having signed to play at a Division I school and having several other Division I offers. It was way more physical than I was used to, and there was much more competition than I thought there would be. I think that year we lost out in three games.”
Bakamus helped frame Frandsen’s experience.
“I think at first they go in there thinking it’s just going to be like picking daisies and then they find that guys are a little older and wiser,” Bakamus said. “These aren’t the kind of guys who chase a chicken in their backyard but they still know what they’re doing.
“I think every young player in southwest Washington should try to play in it,” added Bakamus, “Because once you do it’s just kind of contagious.”
This year part of the youth movement will be comprised of players who work out with either Next Step Basketball or Roots Basketball, a sports training company owned and operated by former tournament MVP, Mark Morris graduate and former Northern Arizona University star Josh Wilson. That team will include Kaleb Poquette of Morton-White Pass and Jaron Kirkley from Mossyrock, along with a collection of other young hoopers.
“I thought it would be good for these young guys to battle with the big boys, especially since we've got those two local boys on the squad plus some other small town kids from Toutle and Castle Rock,” explained Frandsen. “We've also got some bigger school kids, a few from Mark Morris, three kids from Tumwater, and one each from Ridgefield and Astoria. (It’s) quite a diverse group from all over and they're super talented. (They) may even win a few Timber Tourney games.”
Frandsen credited the camaraderie and unrivaled passion of close-knit rural basketball teams for their ability to compete in a wide open playing field.
“I loved playing at Toutle, mainly for my teammates. In a small community like Toutle you play from an early age, all through high school with the same guys,” explained Frandsen. “(It’s) not the same in big cities.”
The secret of the Timber Tourney’s long run of success, according to Frandsen, can be traced right back to the heart of the local participants and fans.
“Pride is huge in Morton, too, because most of these guys are extremely competitive but are done playing competitively, so this is what they gear up for. I played in some of the most competitive environments imaginable in college (specifically twice, at Duke) and while the talent level obviously isn't the same as playing against Carlos Boozer, Mike Dunleavy, JJ Reddick, and Shane Battier, sometimes the competitive nature of the Timber Tourney comes close,” he said. “Minus the 10,000 fans, of course.”
