Celebrating 50 years of Frank: Looking back at the Colmone Classic

Hall High School is celebrating 50 years of the Colmone Classic and its namesake and founder, Frank Colmone, this week.

You would be hard pressed to find a better run tournament than the Colmone Classic.

The exciting nightly, mostly contested games are a given, crowning 49 years of previous champions.

Throw in the best hospitality room anywhere around, featuring items like pizza night, Italian beef night and the ultimate favorite, taco night, compliments of Annabelle Bryant, mother of Hall AD Eric “Junior” Bryant and wife of former Hustlin’ Hall Red Devil coach Eric Bryant.

Participating coaches may first want to know who they are going to be pooled with, but a close second finding out what is on the week’s menu for the hospitality room the nights they play.

Colmone, who was the Hall A.D. from 1970-93, started the then Hall Holiday Invitational in 1974, the first year of the former Red Devil Gymnasium, to create a local tournament for teams to play in the midst of nation-wide gasoline shortages.

The inaugural tournament was made up of locals Hall, DePue, LaMoille, Putnam County, Mid-County and Western along with Mooseheart.

Renamed as the Colmone Classic after his retirement, Colmone said the tournament has grown beyond his wildest dreams.

“I thought it’d be lucky if got by the first three or four years,” he said Tuesday from his courtside seat.

Bryant made a point several years back to bring Colmone back in the forefront of the tournament. Colmone helps run the JV tournament and is a friend to all who participate in the tournament. He presents the trophies on finals night and even participated in publicity photos for the 50th annual tournament.

“I wanted people to meet him and know the face of the tournament originator and not just a name on the front of the program,” Bryant said. “He is a great person with a great family that people love to see and talk to.

Chips Giovanine’s Western Rams won the first three Colmone Classic championships (then known as the Red Devils Invitational) from 1974-76 with undefeated runs to the IHSA State Tournament the first two seasons.

There have been 18 different champions along the way, topped by Fieldcrest with 13, most recently as last year. Hall (7), Putnam County (4), Western (3), St. Bede (3), Princeton (2), Bureau Valley (2), Annawan (1), DePue (1), Kewanee (1) and Mendota (1) have all won at least once.

The 1981 Hall tournament featured two Elite Eight teams - Putnam County and Flanagan - drawing big crowds each night, Colmone said. There have been seven Elite Eight teams, including four state runners-up over the years.

When asked about the best players at the tournament during his time as AD, Colmone said it’s hard to pick, but he included Hall’s own Doug Domkuski, Bob Booker and Derek Zeman, 7-footer Bill Braksick of Flanagan, Joe Perona of St. Bede, Jesse Heath of Annawan, Adam Provance of Seneca, Doug Veronda of PC and Robert Goshen of Chicago Latin.

Certainly tournament great since that time include 2-year MVPs Shawn Jeppson of Hall, Bobby Newhalfen of PC, Adam Parrott of Stark County and most recently Grady Thompson of Princeton.

Princeton coach Jason Smith, who previously led Bureau Valley to the 2017 Colmone Classic championship as interim head coach, said the best part of the tournament is the family atmosphere of all involved.

“Everybody knows everybody. It’s fun to get together and just talk and laugh and joke,” he said. “We’re all competitors on the court and want to beat each other, I get that. But the environment is just so friendly. We’re all friends off the court.

Nick Sterling, who played on Hall’s Colmone champions in 1996 and 1997, said the games helped prepare the Red Devils for their back-to-back state finals appearances those seasons.

“Always felt like a postseason atmosphere/big deal early in the season with the fans and the intensity of the games,” he said.

Hall High School just doesn’t throw out the ball and let the teams play. Bryant said overseeing the tournament has a lot of moving parts.

“We have so many people that contribute to making the tournament what it is,” he said. “First off, the schools and teams that trust us to have a competitive, well-run tournament and having them return year after year tells me we are doing it right. Our staff is what makes everything work. The relationships they have built with so many coaches and teams is amazing.”

The Colmone scorers table crew of Mike Morris, Doug Colmone, Rich Savitch and Ryan Ferrari on the varsity games and JV gym scorers table duo of Teresa and Dean Colmone work 43 games in a week, “which is kinda crazy, but they do an amazing job,” Bryant said.

The Hall office staff of Julie DeAngelo, Lisa Ponce, and Kelli Curran work on the hospitality room, programs, and social media for the tournament and “they really do their best to make it fun and festive with their personal touches of decorations, pictures, and posts on our social media accounts.”

Hall teachers also get involved in the tournament, too. Linda Hoover has her Foods classes make cookies for the hospitality room while Angie Carpenter and Nicki Barto organize a teacher-led hospitality room night.

There’s not many tournaments that provide a website like the Colmone, run by Hall track coach Nick Hanck and Superintendent Jesse Brandt. The Chief of Police Adam Curran and coach Brian Green and his son, Easton, take stats for every varsity game to provide information for the media and public.

“All in all, you surround yourself with good people and good teams and that makes the Colmone Classic enjoyable to us at Hall,” Bryant said.

BCR Sports Editor Kevin Hieronymus has covered the Colmone Classic since 1986. Contact him at khieronymus@bcrnews.com