Folks in small towns everywhere are gearing up for fall sports. The excitement and anticipation for football, volleyball, and cross country is evident as the word spreads about statewide polls and what games to plan on attending. Off in the distant shadows though, basketball sits and watches waiting for their time to come. Of course, if you know Mansfield’s boys basketball coach, Joshua Brown, you know there’s no sitting around during any time of the year. Brown hasn’t put his marker board down since the end of their 2022-23 season. There is no dust gathering on the court as Brown and the Tigers have run offseason practices, camps, and most recently, the program has started a Mens League in Mansfield as an offseason fundraiser for the program.
Coach Brown had pondered on the idea of starting a Men’s League for a while trying to figure out the pros and cons or if it’d even be a halfway successful ordeal. “I have talked about doing this for about two years and finally, Bryce Gentry asked if I was going to get it going” said Brown. “So I told him we would make up some flyers and see what happened. We opened up eight spots, put out flyers, and waited”. Although Coach Brown opened up eight spots for teams, he knew it might take time to get the ball rolling on something so new. Brown was hoping for at least a few teams to sign up, maybe even fill up to five of the eight spots. Instead, Coach Brown’s hope for a few turned into a downright blessing as the Mansfield Mens League had a full eight-team league listed on the schedule in no time flat. Players from the Mansfield, Waldron, Greenwood, and Fort Smith areas created teams with some sweet old-school NBA Jam names like Ball Hogs, OG Dubs, JDeez, ThunderKatz, River Valley Snipers, Mt. Zion, Long Ball, and Time Travelers.
The rules of the Mens League games are pretty cut and dry. Each team is supposed to have five players as a minimum roster and no more than 10 guys total. The games consist of two 20-minute running clock halves. They are played by regular basketball rules except during the running clock where the teams shoot one free throw for two points on shooting fouls and when a team is in the bonus. Last two minutes the shots are regular. These games aren’t just for fun and games either. The players are quite competitive and play just as hard as they would in their younger high school days which makes for a great show for the fans. There are two divisions that consist of four teams each. As it stands right now, in one of the divisions every team is 1-1 in league play and in the other, The River Valley Snipers lead the league 2-0.
“There have been a lot more people come out than I had imagined”, said Coach Brown. “The support for teams has been great and makes the atmosphere fun. We are doing this as a fundraiser for our basketball program so getting eight teams has been a blessing. The money we are raising is going toward us playing at Paycom Center in Oklahoma City next season where the Oklahoma City Thunder plays. We will play at the arena and then go watch the Thunder play that evening. That experience for the boys wouldn’t be possible without this league and the teams playing so I am very thankful for each player and team that has signed up for this.”
The fast success of the Mens League is spreading and some big-time names have come to the small town of Mansfield for games. On Sunday, July 23rd The Jungle was graced by former Razorback and current Oklahoma City Thunders point guard, Isaiah Joe, as well as the Pittsburg Steelers defensive free safety, Trey Norwood, in the crowd. If you haven’t made it out to see a league game yet, you’d better chop-chop. There is only one more week of play in the regular season as the league convenes again on Sunday, July 30th. The fun doesn’t end there though. The Mens League will also usher in a postseason tournament on Sunday, August 6th.
