65th Annual Lanierland Basketball Tournament
In the 1950s in Hall County, football was the inclusive king. It was a time when local taxpayers were accustomed to supporting the football programs, and basketball, which at the time had been played for a little over a quarter century under the GHSA, took a major back seat.
When Cecil William (C.W.) Davis, who starred as a basketball player at Piedmont College, moved to Hall County in 1953, he was welcomed by the assertion that taxpayers would not support the construction of gymnasiums in the county. Davis, who passed away on March 11 of 2017, founded the Lanierland Tournament in 1960 as a way for the programs in Hall County at the time — East Hall, Gainesville, North Hall, and South Hall — to compete in tournaments without having to endure extensive travel expenses. Davis, the principal at South Hall in 1960, was asked in a 2008 interview with the Gainesville Times how and why he came up with the idea for the tournament. He clarified, “We wanted to be able to share expenses and knew we could rotate the tournament from school to school.”
Six decades and more than one hundred championship games later, Lanierland is the longest-running invitational basketball tournament in the state of Georgia. The tournament’s foundation remains the same, but the field size has grown over the years.
We look forward to celebrating the 65th anniversary of Lanierland with our community, and we are grateful to our sponsor, Jackson EMC, for its support in helping to continue the tradition.
