Perry Play Date: Local high schools gather for summer scrimmages

PERRY, Ga. — The offseason is an important time for athletes.

It’s a time to rest and spend time with family, but Perry High School men’s basketball coach Mark Gainous believes it’s also a time to improve your game.

“[We want to] get more kids playing basketball in the summer,” he said. “We’re just trying to get into summer to play basketball and trying to get better. It’s not about winning and losing right now; we’re trying to figure out who can play and who can’t play. The ones that can’t play, what can we do to improve those guys. It’s also just fun getting more people in gyms in the summer.”

One of the first “Play Dates” as Gainous called it was held last Saturday at Perry High School.

Perry, Houston County, Veterans, Dodge, and Peach County High Schools came to this one, but a lot of local teams got an invite.

“I try to get teams within 50 to 60 miles so it’s not too far of a drive. I had a lot of invites out,” Gainous said. “Some guys, they just couldn’t go, they’ve got all these other play dates that they’re doing. Especially all the teams in county, I try to invite them first because they’re close. But anybody within an hour drive I try to invite. Hopefully they’ll bring some fans, we charge $5 admission and we run concessions, but it’s free for the teams. Where else can you go to play free basketball?”

Each team played multiple games so anyone who came to watch got to take a good look at the full roster.

Despite these being summer scrimmages, the games were also very competitive. Veterans came from behind to win in the final minutes in both of their first two games against Perry and Peach County.

Though it’s already a good setup, Gainous has some bigger plans for these play dates in the coming years.

“This is only my second year in high school. I used to run team camps at Georgia College where got about 80 to 85 teams,” he said. “Last summer, it was my first year and I didn’t really know how high school worked, but this is something I think that maybe even next year we can add girls teams, run both gyms and get a lot more teams here. We’re going to continue to build this thing every year.”

Perry will host another play date this Friday and several more in July.

HHJ News