Rating the Tournament Hospitality Rooms
Today, we’re going off the beaten path of the hussle and bussle of basketball action and recruiting. In my visits to all of these early-season tournaments, I had my own little tradition of rating the hospitality rooms that I would visit at each venue. These good people do a great job of accommodating the media, coaches, officials and everyone else on a volunteer basis. I rate each hospitality room on the scale of basketballs from 1 to 5.
In keeping with that tradition, here are some of the ratings of the hospitality rooms that I had the opportunity to visit during the early-season tournaments. I will be doing the same thing in January after visiting the hospitality rooms at the various Christmas Tournaments around the state. Enjoy.
Borgia Turkey Tournament
As always, my first visit was to the Borgia Tournament and they had a tremendous spread in its Hospitality Room, which is the norm. Great variety with delicious BBQ ribs that literally slid off the bone (really had to be careful not to go overboard), a great pasta dish, chicken wings, pizza, salad, sandwiches, veggie plates and a table full of desserts, which included cakes, pies, cookies and other assorted sweets. They overwhelmed you with a variety of food like a good full court press. It was homemade and excellent.
Rating: 5 basketballs
Pattonville Tournament
During my visit to Pattonville’s Hospitality Room, I enjoyed a nice pasta con broccoli dish and a good Ceasar salad with a delicious brownie for dessert. It was excellent. There weren’t a lot of items, but the food was good quality. Very solid room.
Rating: 3 basketballs
Winfield Tournament
Had a great visit to the Hospitality Room at the Bank of Old Monroe BOOM Classic in Winfield. They had an excellent selection of BBQ pulled pork, chicken parm, spaghetti and some great beef cheese nachos, Caesar salad and baked chocolate chip cookies, right out of the over and piping hot. Big kudos to Stacy Bright and her student volunteers who all of the cooking and baking right there in the Home-Ec room. They have the ovens and stoves working overtime from the early afternoon to the late evening preparing all of this homemade food. People were coming back for seconds and thirds.
Rating: 5 basketballs
Warrior Classic (St. Charles West)
I had a fine dining experience at the St. Charles West Hospitality Room. You could get a good salad, a host of snacks and some tremendous homemade vegetable soup. It was prime time. I also had a nice mostaccioli dish with mac and cheese, green beans and garlic bread. The desserts were terrific with apple and peach cobbler, brownies and chocolate and vanilla ice cream. Jeanne Payne has been doing a great job with the hospitality room at St. Charles West for 17 years. Taryn Ballman did a great job with all of the baking. Everything in the room was homemade and excellent. Nice job, ladies.
Rating: 5 basketballs
Webster Classic
I enjoyed some very good eats at the Webster Classic Hospitality Room, which was run by Webster Groves’ football coach Cliff Ice. I started off with a nice beef vegetable soup with some excellent fried chicken from Porter’s and baked beans. There was salad, fruit and some slaw as well. I really loved the dessert, which was a brownie and a delicious piece of pumpkin spice cake. The pumpkin spice cake was the highlight of the meal for me. Terrific. It was a very enjoyable dining experience at the Webster Classic.
Rating: 4 basketballs