The man, the myth, the legend! Gus Macker (aka Scott McNeal) graced the halls of Finch Fieldhouse this week! The CMU Gus Macker students were able to learn about the history of Gus Macker 3-on-3 Basketball from Gus and the administrative and technical logistics of how tournaments are run across the country from Patty “The Queen” Donovan.
The concept began on Spring Break in 1974 in Lowell, MI when eighteen neighborhood boys, including Gus and his brother Mitch (aka Too Sweet) decided to play for money, each putting in a dollar and playing in Gus’s parents driveway. To organize who would play who, Gus and a couple of the other guys put together an amateur bracket with all their nicknames, pairing together teams of three. Gus’s mom, who worked at Amway, printed out and labeled the bracket “Gus Macker” and the name has stuck for 50 years!
Can you guess how Gus got his nickname? There are several stories that float around, but the truth is that Gus used to often get called Mac because of his last name McNeal, which became “Macker,” and then his friend added “Gus” because of former Michigan State basketball coach Gus Ganakas.
After 1974, the driveway tournaments began to grow and grow, with people soon bringing in their own divisions to play against the original crew. But in 1985, the whole tournament would change. A man named Alex Wolff had been written a letter by a twelve-year-old boy nicknamed “Stormy” asking him to cover the Gus Macker basketball tournaments. Well Alex came and boy did he write a story! The article was published in Sports Illustrated and, from then on, Gus Macker Basketball was on everyone’s radar.
The 1990s are dubbed the “Boom Years” of Gus Macker, with 3-on-3 basketball becoming a national trend and Gus Macker tournaments popping up all over the country. Their largest tournament included 5,400 teams! Everyone wanted to play, but in the early 2000s, the company began to downsize and reimagine their purpose: youth basketball. Their focus became on making 3-on-3 tournaments that were community-oriented and kid-friendly, which is what Gus Macker still stands for today.
Now, how do all of these tournaments get coordinated properly? That is where the Gus Macker Queen, Patty Donovan, comes in. Thanks to her creation of the Magic Manual, any community in any city can learn how to organize and run a Gus Macker tournament from scratch. The Magic Manual includes a monthly timeline for tournament preparation and execution, a budget breakdown for sponsorships, the community investment of Gus Macker and more. Patty has worked for Gus Macker for 34 years and the tournaments would not be the same without her diligent attention to detail and love for the game.
The CMU Gus Macker class is unique because they are the only Gus Macker class in the world, but why would this class exist in the first place? It came out of a place of preservation. Gus was hosting a tournament through CMU Athletics to help raise money for Rose Arena (now McGuirk Arena) and he found out that the NCAA would not sanction hosting a 3-on-3 tournament through a university athletic department. To circumvent this, Gus was introduced to T.O., and together they made a plan for the tournament to be run through an RPL class in order to make sure everything was by the book and met NCAA regulations.
When Gus started the first tournament in his driveway, he never planned that he would gain more than eighteen dollars, and instead it became the company he has built and operated for the last fifty years. From young kids who just love colorful basketball shorts to Dunk King champions, Gus Macker has touched the hearts of many, and changed how the event and recreation world creates and manages community-oriented events. Here at CMU, Gus Macker has held a special place for the 395 students who had the honor of planning the last thirteen years of tournaments. Now, the final class of 16 will plan for the 50th anniversary year and what we have to say is…#TALKTOMEGUS!
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