Wizards display skills Friday at the Ironton Sports Center
Published 7:41 pm Thursday, April 30, 2009
If you’re coming to see the Harlem Wizards, be ready to look up.
The Wizards will feature some size, and the players who are not tall in stature possess outstanding jumping ability. They put all their basketball skills and comedic antics on display when they play at 7 p.m. Friday at the Ironton Sports Center.
The Wizards roster has some of their premier players including 5-foot-6 Arnold “A-Train” Bernard of Southwest Missouri State who spent seven years with the Harlem Globetrotters.
“Jump Man” Laquan Castro won seven New York City slam dunk contests despite being only 5-11. He has appeared in NIKE Air commercials.
Rashaan “Rocket” Barner stands just 6-foot tall but has a 50-inch vertical jump. He was a first team All-American at William Patterson University.
For size there is 6-10 Mike Mathews who is fourth on the all-time blocked shot list at Florida State. A member of the All-ACC Rookie Team, Mathews is known as “Big Mike” and “M&M.”
Also playing will be 6-6 David “DP” Paul from Staten Island College and 6-2 Eric “Broadway” Jones of Urbana University who serves as the team’s player-coach.
There will be an autograph session with the Wizards after the game.
Tickets for the event are $6 in advance and $8 at the door. Tickets are available at Ironton High School and Bob Linn Sporting Goods.
The Wizards will be facing a team that includes Ironton’s all-time leading scorer and Northern Kentucky guard Dennis Gagai, former Ironton center and current assistant coach Kevin Hacker, Ironton mayor Rich Blankenship, attorney and assistant prosecutor Kevin Waldo, clerk of courts Mike Patterson, and former Rock Hill star and Western Southern life insurance salesman John Large.
Also scheduled to play for the celebrity team is Andrea Rudmann of Ironton Physical Therapy who led Ironton to a Final Four appearance in 2005 and signed with Shawnee State, Coal Grove basketball team’s Dane Haukendahl, WTCR disc jockey Judy Eaton, current Ironton students Tony Murphy and Michael Lamb, Ironton superintendent Dean Nance, Randy Drewyor of the Gus Macker tournaments and Gus Macker himself, Scott McNeal.
Late additions to the roster are former Ironton basketball players Alstan Carter, Shawon Miller and Greg Linn.
The event is sponsored by the Ironton City Schools and the Lawrence County Juvenile Court.