Goff, DeKalb still hoping longstanding Dayton tournament can happen

Peter Goff said he doesn’t know what the future holds for a boys basketball season.

But the DeKalb athletic director did say that if there is a season, there will be a 93rd annual Chuck Dayton Holiday Classic if he has anything to say about it.

“Somehow, someway, if the state allows us, we will have some sort of Chuck Dayton tournament,” Goff said. “Not just that but all the tournaments we run here.”

Goff said earlier in the fall when it looked like there would be a limited basketball season, he had plans in place for a three-team round-robin to keep the tournament running.

He said it’s the longest continuously running boys basketball holiday tournament in the state of Illinois. And he’s going to do whatever is in his power to keep it that way.

“Right now we’re just in a holding pattern to see what we can do and what we can’t do with our sports,” Goff said. “If we can do it, we will do it. We might not have the Dayton to the extent of a 16-team full tournament ... but we will try to have some sort of tournament if we can.”

The Barbs won the tournament last year, with Joe Owens being named the tournament’s MVP. It was the first time new DeKalb coach Mike Reynolds competed in the tournament.

Although he scouted it before, Reynolds said he enjoyed his first time coaching in the Dayton, although winning it certainly helped.

“That made it a lot better,” Reynolds said with a chuckle. “But even in my experience having scouted it before on different occasions when we had teams from our conference in it, it’s a first-class run event. Peter and (assistant AD Mark Sykes) have kept it going and added their own wrinkles. It’s a tough, high-level event with good teams. Like every tournament, it’s about the quality of the teams you can get in it, and the little details take care of themselves.”

The tournament this year was slated to begin on Dec. 26 and wrap up on the 30th. The Don Flavin wrestling tournament would have been on Dec. 29 and 30, a huge tournament that brings in around 16 wrestling teams to the fieldhouse at the same 16 teams are in the basketball tournament at the gym.

Goff said when he was hired as DeKalb’s athletic director in 2018, a lot of the advice he received centered around the Dayton.

“I can remember when I first got here a former AD looked at me and said if anything else, you need to make sure the Dayton runs,” Goff said. “And I said yep, I’ve been made aware of that many times.”

Goff said he’s tried to make the tournament even more of an experience, adding a DJ last year to add to the atmosphere. They’ve been using stat-keepers to make professional box scores after the games for years.

“Sometimes when you go into a holiday tournament where it can be kind of blah,” Goff said. “I’ve been to some, and we’re playing, and there’s just not a lot of excitement.”

Goff had participated in the tournament when he was a coach at Sterling and Rock Falls, and said he always made a point of trying to catch at least some of the tournament whenever he stopped.

“I’ve scouted when I was an assistant and even when I left for Bloomington I would always try to make it back here,” Goff said. “It was such a well-run tournament and it had a great hospitality room.”

Which is why, Goff said, playing the 93rd annual at some point is so important.

And it’s what Reynolds agrees with him.

“I think it’s as important as having a season,” Reynolds said. “That’s one of the things we’re going to make sure happens. ... I’m 99% sure unless the restrictions push the season so far back we’re going to work something out. It’s a tradition we want to go and, and its a tradition that fans - even though this season might happen without fans - have expected for 90-something years and we want to make it continue on our watch.”