Its like a basketball family out there an oral history of the Gus Macker tournament

If you grew up in Michigan, there are a few incontrovertible truths — you can point out your hometown by gesturing to a spot on your hand, you say “pop” instead of “soda,” and you’ve either been to a Gus Macker basketball tournament or at least own a raggedy old T-shirt from the event, probably handed down from an aunt or uncle or college roommate years ago.

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That’s because in Michigan, the Gus Macker is not just a 3-on-3 basketball tournament. It’s also a rite of passage, part of the cultural fabric, and depending on your age, the backbone of your adolescence. Whether you played in a Macker or simply watched, the event evokes fond memories of squatting on a curb in sweltering heat, heckling an opposing team, or a much-too-brief timeout and a hastily chugged Gatorade. You remember the smell of French fries in large funnel cups, doused in malt vinegar, the sounds of hip-hop blaring through speakers and the ear-splitting squeak of sneakers on asphalt, and the sights of sweaty sunburned faces, skinned knees and knobby-kneed kids or out-of-shape adults toting unwieldy, cartoonish trophies.

You might remember filling out the bubble options on your entrance bracket, the painstaking effort of coordinating your uniforms and the first time, if you were of a certain age, you learned the true meaning of the term “playing hurt.” You might remember the three other players on your first team, or the opponents you hated drawing in your first game, or casually walking past the court two streets over to watch your high school crush.

Gus Macker, the eponymous event of its founder, Scott McNeal, who was conferred the nickname by his high school shop teacher, was symbolic of good, clean fun and a set of straightforward rules: field goals are worth one point, and any shot from beyond the 21-foot arc is worth two. The ball must be taken back to the marked line on the court after each changed possession, and each team is allotted one timeout (except for the 40-and-over division, in which teams are allowed two). Games last 25 minutes, save for the elite men’s and women’s divisions (where teams must win by two). Every squad that pays an entrance fee is guaranteed at least three games. Lose your first two and you have the dubious distinction of battling in the losers bracket for the “Toilet Bowl” trophy.

But before the Macker became part of the zeitgeist and baby-blue dazzle shorts became ubiquitous, before phrases such as “Gus Buster” and “Top Men’s” became Midwestern colloquialisms and the Hall of Fame began honoring its most venerable participants, the Macker was a tournament of modest proportions. This is the story of how one of the country’s most beloved basketball institutions was started back in 1974 in a driveway in Lowell, Michigan, by a few bored teenagers who simply loved to hoop.

The beginning

The McNeal family residence, located at 521 Elizabeth Street in Lowell, was a hub of teenage activity in the early 1970s. Scott McNeal and his younger brother, Mitch, lived there, and all of their buddies were just a short bike ride away. And while their boisterous crew descended upon swimming pools and baseball diamonds to pass the time each summer, it was the McNeals’ driveway that became the true epicenter for this circle of friends. It’s where the idea of the Gus Macker, which would go on to host more than 1,400 tournaments with 2.7 million players and raise approximately $16 million for charities, was conceived — and where a friendly collection of pickup games turned into a cultural phenomenon.

Mitch McNeal: We were within walking distance of school, so it was easy to get to, but I think naturally, we had the driveway. I think our parents were very accommodating. We had a pool table in the family room. It became a hangout, where everyone just showed up. For whatever reason, we attracted people to come, and basketball tended to be the common denominator that brought people around.

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Craig “Skinny Mulligan” Anderson: You know kids, when they’re in their teens — they’re always hungry, always thirsty. Some of the guys would just be going inside making sandwiches, PB and Js. Mrs. Macker was very tolerant. I’m sure she got very fed up with it all, but they were always smiling and happy. I think they saw the bigger picture — that it was good, clean, honest fun.

Bonnie McNeal: I got so used to it, I didn’t think anything of it. We had just the two boys, of course. It was kind of fun, though I come from a family of seven.

Anderson: We were just playing ball, morning, noon and night. There was nothing else to do.

Scott “Gus” McNeal: I was good at basketball, but I was pretty short. By the time I got to my junior and senior year, I had been a captain and played some — I wasn’t a great player by any means — but my high school coach was like, “Yeah, he’s too short,” so I kinda rode the bench my senior year. I didn’t play very much, but when I was in my driveway, I was in my own element.

Skinny, he was my best friend. He didn’t like playing outdoors as much. You know, once the sun gets in your eyes, it might be raining, or it’s too cold. He liked to play in the gym, so when we played in my driveway, some of his talent was negated.

Anderson: [The house] had a two-stall garage, a long, skinny driveway, and the driveway was about as wide as a free-throw lane. If you stood at the end of the drive, the basket was perpendicular to you. You had power forwards on the right; it was a short left side, but a big powerful right side.

Mitch McNeal: Even our pickup games, almost every Sunday afternoon, we’d have 10 to 20 people waiting to play in the driveway. It was just one of those things.

Bonnie McNeal: I remember looking out the window and just thinking. “Oh my gosh.”

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Mitch McNeal: Literally, it just started as something we were doing for fun in the driveway, and we decided to make it more competitive, I guess,  so to speak. Basically, it was the same guys who played pickup ball in the driveway every weekend. Then we decided to put it into a tournament format to make it more competitive. We put in a player draft and things like that to make it more fun. That’s really how it started. And then, by word of mouth, it grew. A friend would tell a friend. And then another friend would tell another friend, and before you know it, we had guys from Grand Rapids [20 miles away] coming to play. We really had no business plan. It just happened naturally and by word of mouth.

Bonnie McNeal: My neighbor, her and I used to do all the cooking — barbecues and hot dogs. I remember selling the hot dogs, three for a dollar. My dining room was full of hot dog buns.

Anderson: That first year, we had 18 guys together, so we had six captains. We chose sides. Everyone put in a buck and we played for $18 bucks. Winner take all, and the losers played off in the Toilet Bowl. The first year, we had so much fun and a pretty rousing success, so we decided we were going to do it again next year. From a whopping 18 players we went to 30 players, so we had 10 teams that second year, and then we went off to college [at Central Michigan University].

Scott was just determined he was gonna keep it going, so that next summer he went home [and put it on again] and sure enough, I don’t know, it just took off from there.

The game changer

At first, the Gus Macker drew local crowds and grabbed a few headlines in the area. As it grew and word spread, its acclaim began to flourish. It would eventually garner a reputation as an authentic streetball tournament that attracted people from all corners of Michigan. But it wasn’t until a Sports Illustrated article titled “The Only Game in Town” was published on July, 8, 1985, that the event was officially on the map.

Mitch McNeal: I would say it was really sometime around the fifth or sixth year, ’79 or ’80, and I don’t think we ever thought we had anything on a national level. We knew we had something that was bigger [on a local level], because around that time frame, that’s when the local media started picking up on it. Warren Reynolds from TV8, the Grand Rapids Press started covering it a little bit, and it was more this kind of human interest story about how this pickup game turned into a tournament, and we’re closing down a street. I really don’t think we had anything at the national level.

Alexander Wolff: I had done a book right out of college about pickup basketball around the country. It may have been working on that or the aftermath of that, where readers of the book would say, “Oh, you overlooked this tournament.” We put an appendix in that book, where to find the best runs around the country. So a lot of people would get in touch with us and say, “How could you have omitted this place?” Or “You idiots, you forgot about this place.” Somebody [contacted us], and if it was Scott McNeal, it would have been tongue in cheek, in good humor — he would have upbraided us very gently, because that’s Scott’s personality.

Scott McNeal: We didn’t think anything would ever come about from it. We didn’t think anything of it, and all of the sudden, we get a response from a guy named Alexander Wolff who was, at the time, a very famous Sports Illustrated writer, especially on basketball, and he said he wanted to come write a story on the Gus Macker. We’re thinking this is a joke and stuff.

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Wolff: I’ll never forget Bill Eppridge, who was the photographer of this story. And Bill had done work for years at the old Life magazine. In fact, he took the famous picture of Bobby Kennedy when he was shot, when he was on the floor and there was a busboy leaning over him. He was a great chronicler of American life, and when he showed up in Michigan for the Macker, he was completely captivated. Just the Americana, the pageantry and the tapestry, the little touches of humor and everything.

Mitch McNeal: Number one, we were just shocked that he came out. It really became big after that. We had a full-time DJ during the event. We had really fun, hokey backyard stuff like the Miss Macker contests.

Wendi Taylor (nee Poel), Miss Macker ’91: We had to do a sports attire, a swimwear and a formal-attire competition. And then, in the formal wear, they did a question-and-answer portion, and that year I actually tied. So they did another question for us. I remember my last question — it was: What’s one thing people should have and never be taken away from them? I answered “an opinion,” because everyone has a right to that opinion.

Taylor: I have the [crown and sash] in a box in my bedroom. My sash originally said Miss Macker on it but, with their approval, I got a new one, because I was going to all different towns and to different states, so I had “Miss Macker, Belding, USA.”

Wolff: I remember just the warmth of the McNeal family, Dick and Bonnie. I had grown up in sort of a Midwestern suburb myself, and it reminded me a little of the suburbs I had grown up in. They were just so welcoming. And it just started in these very humble ways, playing in the driveway. They had made such a point of overlaying all these touchy-feely, gauzy things about sports, and particularly basketball, as a way of bringing things together, and they were unabashed about it. They loved the fact there were people from inner-city Grand Rapids who were coming to Lowell to partake. As far as the McNeals were concerned, that was one of the features, not the bugs, of the Macker. All of Michigan was going to come together.

Mitch McNeal: That article really is what changed it. We knew we had something, but we didn’t know we could do it as a full-time occupation until the article came out, and all of the sudden, we started getting calls of “How can we do this in our backyard?”

Scott McNeal: Other cities were calling us up after the Sports Illustrated piece. They wanted to do their own [tournaments].

The heyday

After the Sports Illustrated article, the Gus Macker only gained momentum, ultimately outgrowing its original confines in Lowell and relocating to nearby Belding, Michigan, in 1987. ABC broadcast the tournament nationally in 1989, paving the way for its popularity explosion over the next decade. It was during this next stretch that the size of the events ballooned. The tournament expanded and began gaining traction in other parts of the country, and the cartoonish Macker emblem started popping up everywhere. Bona fide talent, including Grand Rapids legend and Central Michigan standout Melvin “Sugar” McLaughlin, and Flint’s Laurie Byrd, who starred at Eastern Michigan and went on to play professionally, descended upon the courts in Belding and hit the sorts of shots that are still part of tournament lore decades later (like The Hindenberg). Future Hall of Fame teams from all over the country, such as Jerry Fike and “Miss Elizabeth’s Fan Club” from California and the “Flying Knueppel Brothers” from Wisconsin — considered the summer circuit essential, and a beachside tournament was established in Ludington, Michigan, and became an instant classic. Competition was fierce, and the company’s newly minted gear was becoming coveted, with clothing sales at one point topping $150,000 during a single weekend Macker.

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Anderson: It just became an organization. It became like an empire. Scott and Mitch took it to a whole other level. It started, first a lot in Michigan and then in the Midwest, and then it kept expanding.

McLaughlin: There were two guys I knew back from the inner city. They were playing up at Central Michigan at the time, and I was still in high school, and when the Macker first started, they used to play in the driveway in Lowell. They’d come back and say, “Hey man, you gotta come out to Lowell and play with us at this 3-on-3 tournament.” … I was like, “Lowell?! C’mon, man, there’s not no ballplayers out in Lowell.” Back then, I remember it being rural and farmer culture out there. They kept at me, trying to finally encourage me to come, and I finally did. … When I was a freshman or sophomore in college, I finally got a chance to play out there. It was in Belding then. I fell in love with it.

Scott McNeal: The ’90s was booming. You couldn’t believe the number of teams. You would flip out. By 1992, we had 5,400 teams in Belding. It was really booming.

John Niemela, Belding city manager: We were quite successful getting it together so they could move it to the city almost seamlessly. The biggest challenge we had was making sure we could accommodate everyone coming into town, finding parking, and a big thing we worked on very hard was with all those people coming into town, making sure we had food for them. We only have a few restaurants, so we pulled together some charities and civic groups. People really jumped in with both feet, and that’s what makes it a big success. … From my perspective, I was really proud of our entire community, because we really stepped up.

Taylor: What I really found interesting was, no matter what culture you were in, or what area you were in, the people really loved the tournament and went out of their way — of course, you’re going to have your little tiffs here and there — but in general, it’s a whole different atmosphere than any 3-on-3 I’d ever been to. Whether it was for the Toilet Bowl or [Top Men’s] trophy, they loved ’em no matter what. The experience of it, the camaraderie, the sportsmanship you saw in this tournament was just amazing.

McLaughlin: The crowds, the enthusiasm, the competition. That’s what caught my eyes the most. They had 79,000 [spectators] one time in ’89, when ABC came there. And I remember us winning it, me and the crew that I was with. And I remember the slam dunk contest as well. It was just a great time back then.

Byrd:  I remember hitting the winning shot one time. We had one of the shortest teams and even though a lot of people picked us to win, we were sort of morally the underdogs. I remember hitting a fadeaway runner, off the glass, and running off the court as it was going in and winning the [top women’s division].

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Fike: We stayed in Lowell, but by that time the tournament was in Belding. So we do the old Hoosiers thing, getting in a car to head up there to Belding to spend a whole day up there and play. The first year we went, the town has about 5,600 residents, and they had over 5,000 teams, and they figure they had over [100,000 people attend each day]. We had a great time. Everybody we met was just fantastic to us. … We met a team up [in Ludington], the Flying Knueppel Brothers. They’re always there. The youngest one, Kon, was an NAIA All-American for Wisconsin Lutheran. They’re playing on the Top Men’s court and dive for a ball out of bounds and end up in the sand and roll under the stands. After that, we said “We got to meet these guys.”

Kon Knueppel:  I’m the youngest, so I never got to start, but I’m the tallest — I’m 6-4. Klint is like the garbage-man screener; he’s 6-2. Klay’s 6-2, and Kole’s 5-10. So between me, Klay and Kole, we did all the scoring. We were at the Macker [Hall of Fame] banquet the other day, and we were up on stage, and I had me and my brothers stand up, and I said “If you lined up all 16 teams in a Top Men’s tournament, would you pick us to win? No. And more importantly, if there were 16 teams up there, who would you pick to finish dead last?” And everybody laughed, because it’s us. We totally fail the eyeball test. We don’t look like we can beat anybody. Our strategy was to shoot all [two-pointers] because we were often outsized, but we never gave up.

Scott McNeal: That half-court game, you think you don’t have to be in shape. But the intensity of playing a Macker in those first five minutes, you’re out of breath going “Oh my gosh,” and it’s because of the buildup you’ve been waiting to play in this thing.

Fike: Back in ’95, we were [making plans to play] in Ludington, and [my daughter, Allyson,] was engaged. They had planned their wedding for the weekend of the Macker tournament, because she knew we were going to Michigan — but she thought we were going to Belding, which was a few weeks after. And I asked her, “Allyson, we’re playing in Ludington that weekend.” And she said, “I can’t change it.” And jokingly, I said, “Let’s make a deal. We’ll pay for your honeymoon in Maui, Hawaii, if you change it to September.” She changed it to September, and we got to go to Ludington.

Staying power

After reaching its apex in the 1990s, the Gus Macker was forced to evolve in order to retain its nostalgic feel and ward off the temptation of selling out and going corporate, like some of its competitors were doing. The McNeals never wanted the Macker to lose its hometown flavor, long considered essential to its success. So the tournament and the organization itself had to adapt. 

Scott McNeal: What happened in the ’90s — and it was interesting, because the people who were copying me, they too, all ran into the same problem. And that was, it got so big, and the players were still calling their own fouls and violations, that by the late ’90s, it had more of a streetball [feel]. And people were going and choosing teams that were more physical, more intimidating. The guys who were just playing for fun stopped playing. Then, only the hardcore guys kept playing, and it got so rough in the late ’90s.

Knueppel:  What’s different about Mackers is you just have to have a scrappy attitude — which is different than a scrappy indoor player. And you’ve got to be able to mix it up. It’s streetball. You can’t be afraid to grab ahold and make people mad.

Scott McNeal: How we survived it is we kept shrinking our organization internally. We kept trying to make it better and better for the locals, and in the 2000s, we went away from court monitors and Gus Busters, and now most of our tournaments are officiated.

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McLaughlin: It’s younger now, much younger. I don’t think back then they had as many little kids involved. It was more like teenagers and adults that were participating.

Knueppel: Typically, Gus Mackers are in smaller towns, and the whole community would get involved. [Another tournament,] Hoop it Up, which is why I think it died, was in big cities, and I don’t know — they were well-organized, but it didn’t have the same feel at all.

McLaughlin: It’s like a basketball family out there, because you’ve got people of all races, colors and creeds out there participating, and it’s just a basketball family. Everybody’s kind of close-knit once they start competing with each other, because they start seeing each other regularly on the weekends. You see a lot of the same faces, and you establish a lot of friendships and relationships.

Knueppel: People that haven’t played in one or been to one don’t really understand it. Five years ago, for the 40th anniversary, I went to the Hall of Fame banquet in Belding, and I have five boys, and we’re super busy. So I could only take a few of them with me, and I said to Chari, that’s my wife — she’s the all-time leading scorer at UW-Green Bay — I said, “When it comes back up in five years, we’re all going.” Because when you’re there and see all of these people who just love it and have been through similar experiences and know what it’s all about, it’s really incredible.

Byrd: It was so exciting growing up and having that stage, especially for girls, having people watching you. You could play ball outdoors but people wouldn’t be watching you, and Gus gave us the opportunities to play and do what we do, with other girls and women at this time, so it was exciting.”

Milestone memories

Last month, the Gus Macker celebrated its 45th anniversary, holding a Hall of Fame banquet to honor its newest inductees — Basil “Doc Rise” Hampton, Jamey Mullen and Tom Revoir, Tim “T.O.” Otteman and “Dr. Lori” Irwin, the City of Ludington, and Tony Wysinger — and a few of others whose plaques already graced the Hall, players such as elite dunker Rodney Glassnor (2003), fellow dunk legend Jumpin’ Jack Kelly (1998) and Steve “Preacher” Lee (1998). Scott McNeal, charismatic and ebullient, brings some of his oldest friends and fellow Macker participants to the stage and also honors two longtime Macker staff members, Patty Donovan and Mike Fuller, reliving some of the tournament’s most memorable moments and musing on what a 50th anniversary might look like.

Scott McNeal: My daughters weren’t around that time, so they don’t realize the culture of the dunk contest in the ’80s and the ’90s.

Hampton (co-winner of the 1988 dunk contest): When I first heard about the Gus Macker, I had no clue about it. I talked to [my friend] Parker, and he said they were giving away 1,000 dollars for a dunk contest. And he said, “We gotta go get it.”

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Glassnor (co-winner of the 1988 dunk contest): It was crazy. I remember Belding — me and Basil. I remember we had to make paths to dunk. That’s how many people were watching the dunk contest.

Scott McNeal: Rodney’s claim to fame was he would open up the dunk contest — most guys would hold back their best dunk. Rodney wouldn’t hold back. He’d throw the ball out, and he’d go get it, and he’d find the rim. He’s 6-2, and do you know what your vertical was back then?

Glassnor: 40 inches.

Scott McNeal: And he never smiled once. He was a mean dunker.

Glassnor: I just tried to set the tone. I can say that’s probably the best competition in a dunk contest. I’ve dunked all over the world, in Europe, etc., for dunk contests — but the best dunkers are from Michigan. By far.

Knueppel:  You’re there, and you see how these people, we just have this common bond. It really does start at the top. It’s Gus himself and the people he has working for him. It bleeds down into their events.

McLaughlin: The Macker just celebrated its 45th year, and that’s a testament to [Scott’s] love and passion for it, and his staff as well. Just making it a very, very fun atmosphere — not only for the players, but for the families as well. There’s a warm feeling and a family atmosphere.

Fuller: You don’t know what he did just to get the Hall of Fame. If you want to find Gus seven days a week, he’ll be in his office. He’ll be there until 11 o’clock at night. He’ll be the first one there in the morning, and he’ll put his whole heart into it.

Scott McNeal: What I’m working on today is trying to figure out how to keep the business solvent enough so I can still have all this fun with it, and that’s really the challenge. … To keep it going for 45 years is more of a miracle than people realize.

(Top photo of Melvin “Sugar” McLaughlin at the 1987 Belding Macker courtesy of MLive / Grand Rapids Press)

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