Polson ready for 3-on-3 tourney

POLSON — For the 21st consecutive year, downtown Polson will be overrun by hoops, headbands, and the unmistakable sound of basketballs being dribbled this coming weekend.

This year’s edition of the Flathead Lake 3-on-3 basketball tournament will feature more than 275 teams playing on 24 courts along 1st Street West, 3rd Avenue East and West and 4th Avenue East and West.

Games will begin at 9 a.m. on Saturday, July 27 until champions are declared sometime the following afternoon. There are 16 divisions listed, and competitors’ ages will range all the way from 5th and 6th graders to adult teams.

Anderson Broadcasting’s Rich Forbis, who has organized the tournament for all 21 years of its existence, has a theory on why the Flathead 3-on-3 has been so successful.

“I think it’s just a fun place to have a tournament,” Forbis said. “…There aren’t too many places where you can just walk down the hill and fall into the lake.”

The Flathead 3-on-3 began in 1992 with eight baskets and 85 teams. Forbis said the field doubled in size the following year and continued to grow into the largest 3-on-3 event of the year in the Mission and Flathead Valleys, hosting between 250 and 300 teams each year.

“It’s really a testament to the city of Polson and the volunteers who get involved,” Forbis said of the tournament’s growth and longevity. He said many of the tournament’s sponsors have been backing the event since the beginning.

Forbis also said that teams will come from as far as Spokane, Wash. and Rapid City, S.D. to compete.

The two-day fiesta includes a 3-point shooting and dunk contest that will take place Saturday at 8 p.m.

Rumor has it that former Los Angeles Lakers star Michael Cooper could be judging the dunk contest. Forbis said he is still waiting for confirmation from Cooper, who will be in the area the next week for a basketball camp at Salish Kootenai College.

Forbis said the proceeds from the tournament go back into the community, whether it’s providing them with fundraising opportunities related to the tournament or by donating the earnings to organizations like the Polson Chamber of Commerce to help the city with certain improvements.

The gargantuan task of scheduling the nearly 300 teams falls to Steve Woll, who coaches the Ronan High School boys basketball team and runs the Mission Valley 3-on-3 series.

Woll and Les Rice, Mission High’s girls coach, organize the brackets for the tournament.

“They do a terrific job putting the thing together,” Forbis said.

The organizers find officials from the Montana Officials Association, and most of the referees come from the Missoula area.

Though glad for the extended success of the tournament, Forbis said he isn’t sure if he wants the tournament to grow any more than it has.

“I don’t know that we could handle any more,” he said. “That’s a lot of people when you’re doing that number of games.”