St. Eugene’s Trophy Basketball from October 26 to 28

One place that basketball enthusiasts will head to during the next weekend will be Police Park as the St. Eugene’s Trophy basketball tournament will get underway for the fourth successive year. The inter-club five-a-side basketball tournament will feature 20 men’s teams, ten women’s teams and ten schools teams. The tournament will be played on the 26th, 27th and 28th of October with the finals getting underway at 6pm with his Lordship Rt. Rev Dr. Raymond Wickramasinghe, the Bishop of Galle, as the Chief Guest. Along with the prestigious St. Eugene’s Trophy, a total prize money of Rs. 200,000 is on offer for this year’s winners. The 20 men’s teams will be pooled in four different groups and according to the placing each team receives at the end of the group stage teams will compete in Cup, Plate and Bowl Championships.

The ten women’s teams will be pooled in two different groups and while the top two ranked teams will qualify to play the Cup Championship, the next two teams will play in the Plate Championship with the last placed team being knocked out of the competition. The schools tournament will be an under-16 competition meant for boys born on or after 01.01.1997 and will be played for Cup and Plate Championships.

Last year, Rev. Fr. E.J. Herbert medal for outstanding services to local basketball was introduced and the recipient of the award was former Sri Lanka basketball coach Francis de Almeida.

Rev. Fr. Eugene John Hebert was a Jesuit priest after whom the medal has been named to recognize the services of individuals to Sri Lankan basketball. Fr. Hebert was an American Jesuit missionary in Sri Lanka. He was born in Louisiana, USA, on October 9, 1923 and joined the Jesuits in 1941 at the age of 17. After completion of Jesuit studies, he volunteered for the Ceylon Mission and he arrived in Sri Lanka in 1948. One of his first assignments was to St Joseph’s College in Trincomalee as a teacher and sports coach. He was named principal there for a brief period. Then Fr. Hebert was sent to Batticaloa where he functioned as the champion basketball coach of St. Michael’s College, where he won several inter-school championships and produced several national players.

St. Eugene’s Association shortlisted three individuals to receive the honour this year and after much discussion the organizing committee has decided to award this year’s Rev. Fr. Hebert medal to Rev.Bro. Philip.

Bro. Philip is a De La Salle Brother and has served the game of basketball in several capacities for over three decades now. He was one time a rival of Fr. Hebert when he functioned in the capacity of Master-in-Charge of basketball at De Mazenod College, another leading basketball playing school in the country. Bro. Philip the Director/Principal of St. Benedict’s College, Kotahena from 1989 to 1994 and he came up with several initiatives to improve basketball at the school.