City of Palms Classic

The City of Palms Classic is an annual high school basketball tournament held in Fort Myers, Florida.

The tournament began in 1973 as a high school boys' basketball tournament with a seven-team format. The earliest editions featured teams primarily from the Fort Myers News-Press' high school coverage area, but there were some quality teams from around the state, including Lakeland High, Brandon, Pompano Beach, Glades Central and Okeechobee.

In 1985, Bill Pollock, a Fort Myers resident whose son, John, was a rising senior at Fort Myers High School, became involved in the tournament, as did the News-Press' preps editor, Donnie Wilkie. The two have teamed ever since, and the tournament, sponsored by Bank of America (formerly Barnett Bank and NationsBank), quickly skyrocketed into a major national event. Pollock's son led Fort Myers to the 1985 tournament championship against a still-mostly-local field. Currently, the tournament consists of a 16-team national bracket, with selected "Sunshine Series" games (featuring additional high school teams from Florida and Georgia) dotting the schedule throughout the typically six-day event.

Among the early breakthroughs for the tournament was a rivoting, triple-overtime championship game in 1989, in which Flint Hill School, led by Randolph Childress, Cory Alexander and Serge Zwikker, defeated Abraham Lincoln High School (Brooklyn, New York), led by Norman Marbury and Tchaka Shipp, 70-68, on a last-second 3-pointer by Childress, who went on to stardom at Wake Forest University.

Oak Hill Academy (Mouth of Wilson, Virginia) made its lone appearance (the Florida High School Athletic Association will no longer sanction them to play) in 1991, finishing third after losing to Franklin Learning Center from Philadelphia in the semifinals. Two years later, in 1993, the tournament made history with a field that included Danny Fortson, Ron Mercer, Tim Thomas and future NFL quarterback Daunte Culpepper—all in consolation brackets. Crenshaw High School (Los Angeles, California) won that year's tournament, scoring 117, 99 and 98 points in three of its four games, and finished the season ranked No. 3 in the nation by USA Today. St. Augustine High School (New Orleans, Louisiana) won the following year and went on to capture USA Today's mythical national championship in boys' basketball. The success in the early and mid 90's catapulted the tournament into national prominence.

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