Eldorado Holiday Tournament: Fans love it, lore surrounds it
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[The Eldorado Holiday Tournament has a legion of fans, some of whom rarely miss a session.
"I've never missed a tournament," Martin Duffy of New Haven said.
Duffy recalled watching the blind-draw for placement at the first tournament in 1965 when he was 10 years old. The tournament was only a four-team affair then, including Carrier Mills-Stonefort, Harrisburg, Ridgway and Eldorado.
Duffy went on to play on Ridgway's EHT championship team in 1972.
A few years after Ridgway's first-place finish, Frank "Louie" Morse from Carrier Mills started attending tournaments. This year is his 34th.
"Really it has been 35 years, but I had to miss a year because I had pneumonia," Morse said.
Mace Hankins, also from Carrier Mills, started attending tournaments in 1980.
"Since then, I've never missed one," Hankins said.
Hankins had a hard time choosing the best game he's ever seen.
"Carrier Mills has been good lately and that is what is in the front of my mind," Hankins said.
He recalled Carrier Mills vs. Eldorado in 2008 as a great game. The teams went back and forth the entire game, Hankins said.
"Last year the championship game was very good too," Hankins said.
However, Hankins missed what is perhaps the greatest game ever played during the EHT. In 1980, on New Year's Eve, Cairo and Pinckneyville battled to a 92-91 barnburner in front of a standing-room-only crowd.
"That was the best game every played here. I got burned," Hankins said.
Being a teenager got the best of him that night -- Hankins had his first, and only, party at his parents' house that night.
"That was the only championship I have missed," Hankins said.
Duffy and Morse agreed the Cairo-Pinckneyville game was the most memorable in tournament history.
Duffy mentioned a guaranteed argument-starter -- greatest all-tournament team. Duffy had been discussing that earlier with friends, he said.
"There was a lot of love earlier for '89-'90," Duffy said.
"But there is not a team out there that could beat 1975."
The '75 all-tournament team featured Steve Crabb of Harrisburg, Mike Duff of Eldorado, Verlandis Kinard and Harvey McNeal of Cairo and Barry Smith of Eldorado.
"I think all those guys played Division I (college) basketball," Duffy said.
The 1989-1990 all-tournament team included Jerome Abbage of Century, Matt Aydt of Gallatin County, Matt Broom of Carmi, Joe Evans of Century, Clay Gray, Reed Jackson and Travis Johnson of Norris City-Omaha-Enfield, Patrick Greathouse of Carmi, Scott Haley and Ryan Norris of Waltonville, Benji Johnson of McLeansboro and T. J. Wheeler of Christopher.
Several people said Duff-Kingston Gym is a great place to take in a high school basketball tournament. The gym compares favorably to some Division I basketball gyms, Duffy and Gene Hauptmann of Harrisburg said.
Hauptmann said the gym is one of the best he's ever seen in a small community.
"People should be proud of this gymnasium," Hauptmann said.
People guard their chair seats for the tournament, sitting in the same sections
year after year. Duffy just wrote out a living will which includes a provision leaving his floor seats to his son.