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Raw Sports captures 58th annual Donofrio Classic

04/18/2018, 9:45am EDT
By Austin Petolillo

Sam Sessoms (above) won the MVP award as Raw Sports captured the 2018 edition of the Donofrio Classic. (Photo: Mark Jordan/CoBL)

Austin Petolillo (@AustinPSports)
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CONSHOHOCKEN -- When you walk into the Fellowship House on a spring night, you’re greeted by a photo gallery of posters on the right-hand side of the lobby.

In that gallery is a who’s who of basketball legends. Kobe Bryant, Kyrie Irving, Al Harrington, Rasheed Wallace, all who have participated in a little tournament located in a tiny community gym every spring.

All of these players have their pictures in the gallery as champions of the Donofrio Classic and now, the 2018 Raw Sports All-Stars will finally have their photo and name next to basketball icons as they took down LVBR by a final score of 118-91 to capture the 58th edition of the Donofrio Classic.

“I never compare myself to Kobe and Kyrie game-wise but I’m on the same list as them so I get a couple points for that,” said Binghamton commit Justin Steers, a Rocktop Academy grad.

For Raw Sports founder Mike “Big Star” Starling and head coach Joe Proctor, this Donofrio title has been a long time coming.

After entering the tournament in 2015, the Raw Sports All-Stars finished in the final four once, in 2016 and as runners-up twice, in 2015 and 2017.

“I said to myself, ‘if we don’t get it this year, man, I don’t know,’” Starling said with a laugh.

It all started back in 1998 when Proctor, who is currently the assistant coach at Harrisburg High School, made the trip east from Harrisburg to Conshy with Harrisburg high school head coach Kirk Smallwood and coached a team that had guys from Harrisburg as well as players on Hatboro-Horsham, most notably former St. Joe’s guard Pat Carroll.

“Coach Smallwood brought me down here and got me acclimated to the Donofrio and I was dying to get back,” Proctor said. “I kept in touch with Al Rubin and all of a sudden, an opening came up and it just was like perfect timing, I said ‘I got the guys, we can make it happen’ and that’s how it happened.”

The 2015 team had current St. Joe’s forward Taylor Funk, current Villanova forward Dylan Painter and former Miami guard and now NBA Draft prospect Lonnie Walker. Though that was not enough as they fell to Team Hardnett, who had NBA Draft prospect Tony Carr, former Penn State wing Nazeer Bostick, and former St. Joe’s guard Chris Clover, in the title game.

Raw Sports returned in 2016 with the same core of Walker, Painter and Funk, as well as adding current Michigan guard Eli Brooks, but lost in the final four to Old School Cavs who had current St. Joe’s guard Ryan Daly, Samford guard Josh Sharkey, and Duke commit Cam Reddish.

Last season, Walker, Funk, Brooks and the rest of the Raw Sports All-Stars were back for a third time but the third time wouldn’t be the charm for them as they fell to Rhode Island guard Fatts Russell and Team Philly in the championship game.

This year’s Raw Sports team was headlined by Indiana commit Jake Forrester, who didn’t play in the semi-finals and final due to being sick. They also had Towson commit Allen Betrand, Princeton commit Drew Friberg, a pair of Binghamton commits in Steers and Sam Sessoms, 2019 D-I prospects Ray Somerville, and Rodney Carson, and 2020 D-I prospect Mikeal Jones.

Sessoms and Somerville were the only players on this year’s Raw Sports team that played in last year’s championship game, a 46-point blowout.

“That was the first thing I preached to the team, because this was my second year,” Sessoms said. “Everyone else was newcomers besides Ray so I just made it knowing that we lost in this game last year and our only goal this year was to win it all.”

On Tuesday night, Sessoms made sure he wasn’t going to lose in the final in back-to-back years and took matters into his own hands as he dropped 24 points in their victory and won tournament MVP.

Raw Sports has mostly been based out of central Pennsylvania but Starling and Proctor have had to go outside of their target area to get kids.

“It originally started with a lot of central PA guys,” Proctor said. “It kind of expanded, we ran out of guys, we had to expand our recruitment so we kind of dabbled into Philly a little bit and got a couple Jersey guys.”

Doing most of the recruiting is Starling, who goes all over central and eastern Pennsylvania with his camera and stand and records games for the Raw Sports YouTube channel.

“I’m out at these kids’ games covering their games for my YouTube channel, basically out during the year building relationships with the players,” Starling said. “They see me out at their games holding it down and as it gets closer I’m like ‘Yo, Donofrio?’ And by then, the relationship is already built.”

Proctor says that he and Starling come up with their individual list of kids, around 30 or 40  combined, and as the tournament gets closer, they start narrowing down their roster until they have about 15 guys.

What originally started as a Philadelphia-based tournament showcasing local talent, has quickly turned into a regional all-star tournament with guys coming not only from Philadelphia and central Pennsylvania, but players from North Jersey and the DMV make the trip to the tiny gym in Conshohocken.

On LVBR, Ohio State commit Luther Muhammad, who is from Irvington New Jersey, was one of the top performers in the tournament. On the Old School Cavs, Penn State commit Myles Dread shot up I-95 to participate in the tournament and made the All-Tournament team.

“It just means a lot,” Sessoms said. “It’s such a prestigious tournament in this area and a lot of players like Luther and Myles all came from different parts so it just shows how great of a basketball atmosphere this is,” Sessoms said.

Though he is based out of central Pennsylvania, Starling is a local guy and used to attend the Donofrio Classic back when he attended Norristown High School in the early 1990s.

“I was in those very stands, when they weren’t those stands,” Starling said. “When that glass wasn’t there, it was a stage, these bleachers weren’t here, it was a whole bunch of brown fold up chairs, I was here in High School watching these games.”

Now, Starling, Proctor, and the rest of the Raw Sports All-Stars, will have their picture up in the gallery of champions for years and years to come.

“I love that they got the gallery out there to the young players can see how many players played in this tournament,” Starling said. “It’s a dream come true, when you look at the legacy and the history that’s been in this building, to finally have our photograph solidified as one of those, next to the greats, it’s special man.”


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