Danville’s annual holiday youth basketball tournament will return to George Washington High School this year, after being displaced last year because of renovation construction projects at the school. The Harry Johnson Holiday Classic Committee will hold its monthly meeting at 5:30 p.m. Monday to plan for the event.
The tournament honors the late Harry Johnson, who coached boys basketball at George Washington High School for 19 years and led the team to a state championship in 1996.
Every year, middle and high school students from the Danville and Pittsylvania County school systems play in a traditional tournament-style competition over the course of three days at the end of December.
Planning for the tournament is a yearlong operation.
The Harry Johnson Holiday Classic Committee meets once a month, starting in January after the end of the tournament for the year prior.
Sylvia Brooks and Shelby Irvin co-chair the committee. Brooks has worked with the Danville Police Department for over 25 years and Irvin is a division chief with the Danville fire department and was the city’s first female firefighter.
Brooks and Irvin spoke with River City TV, Danville’s local government access channel, in July about the tournament. They were joined by other members of the committee, like Danville Public Schools Superintendent Angela Hairston and GW principal Johnny Cressell.
“This is really great for the youth, the young people to have something to do during the Christmas holiday,” Brooks said on River City TV.
The tournament is scheduled for Dec. 26-28, and many teams are already registered.
“It’s major for us” to have the tournament back in the high school gym, Brooks said.
The tournament was held at O.T. Bonner Middle School last year because of ongoing construction of an additional gymnasium at GW, as well as other renovation projects.
The 2025 tournament will be held in the high school’s new additional gymnasium, while this year’s tournament will be played at the usual location in the existing gym, which the school is calling “Gym #2.”
A 1% sales tax increase, approved in a referendum by voters in 2021, is funding several capital improvement projects across the school district. A new track facility at GW opened in 2023, allowing students to compete in track and field at the high school for the first time in 20 years.
Projects at Arnett Hills Elementary School and the Galileo Magnet High School (the former John M. Langston High School for Black students) are set to be complete during the summer of 2025.
Also this week is the Commission of Architectural Review meeting, at 3:30 p.m. Thursday.
