Ed Merica remembers.

So does Gordie Wick and Don Miller.

All three Leelanau County basketball coaching legends remember that any tournament run their teams made always went through the classic gym at Traverse City Central High School.

Most of the time, those memorable games they coached at Central were at the Regionals, like the one this week the Leland Comets were part of.

But there were a few times when it involved District play and other times when quarterfinals were played at the huge gym, which seats nearly 3,000.

The players who took part in those games will tell you that there was nothing quite like the pre-game atmosphere.

You would take the court and hear the wild cheers of an entire town – your town. You would wait to be introduced by T-C Central athletic director John Sonnemann – "The Voice," as we called him in the media.

And then the game itself was played on a college-sized floor – 90 feet long. It was a bigger court than high school players were used to. So it favored the team that was in better shape.

Many times that meant our Leelanau teams, which always seemed to get up and down the floor effortlessly on fast breaks.

The first time I encountered a Leelanau team in regional play was 1967, some 41 years ago. I was in seventh grade and the manager on the varsity basketball team in Mancelona.

We were a huge underdog in our District final to No. 2-ranked Ellsworth. But we got off to a 25-9 first quarter lead and withstood a furious rally by the Lancers to capture the title. I still have the District medal they awarded to team members and managers that year.

The irony of the situation was that my dad changed the name of Ellsworth’s sports teams from the Flying Dutchmen to the Lancers when he returned home from World War II and took over as head coach there. Many years later, when we won the District, he was the junior varsity basketball coach at Mancelona.

So we went on to Regional play at Grayling against Northport. We had high hopes. But Northport had the one-two punch of Denny Dame and Wayne Kilcherman and we never had a chance. Denny, who taught at Glen Lake for more than 30 years, and Wayne later became good friends of mine. Northport went on to win a state title 21 years later with Wick at the helm. (See the Looking Back section in this week’s Enterprise for a story on the 1987-88 Northport team.)

Eleven years earlier, Miller led Glen Lake to the Class D title when the Lakers played their District, Regional and quarterfinal games at the same location – Traverse City Central. The Lakers were perennial winners in March.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Ed Merica’s Lake Leelanau St. Mary’s teams were outstanding. They would play before packed Regional crowds at Traverse City Central.

Suttons Bay also enjoyed tournament success in the 1960s and 1970s, then again when Todd Hursey’s squad went 20-0 during the regular season and made it to the Regionals. Leelanau School also enjoyed success back in the late 1970s when 6-foot-9 Lloyd Praedel worked his magic and then parlayed that into a Division I scholarship.

But the magic of Regional play wasn’t just about the games, the players and the coaches.

It was about the enthusiasm that swept through the school and through the town in the days leading up to the game itself.

It’s something only a small town can appreciate. That’s because when you go to a game, you have more than your $5 admission invested. You usually have a lifetime of knowing the players in the big game.

School spirit is at its best during the tournament run. To appreciate what kind of legacy that Leelanau County basketball teams have left, just ask any longtime fan to recall his favorite tournament games and players.

You may need an hour or two.