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By ALAN K. STOUT alanks@leader.net
Tuesday, March 18, 2003 Page: 1B
WILKES-BARRE – Ten years after Phil Woods was a standout basketball player
at Meyers High School, his love for the game still burns.
Although he still lives in Wilkes-Barre, he’s been traveling to the state
capital every Saturday for two years to play for the semi-pro Harrisburg
Horizons, for which he also serves as assistant coach and head coach of the
women’s team.
Now, thanks to his skills and his dedication to the game, Woods is getting
ready to trot the globe with a basketball in hand.
And, he’ll be doing so with the world famous Harlem Globetrotters.
Woods, a security officer at the Luzerne County Courthouse, will tour
Europe with the New York Nationals, a semi-pro team that serves as an opponent
to the Globetrotters, who, by the way, almost never lose.
“I don’t think you’re told not to win,” says Woods, 28, with a smile.
“My understanding is that so much of the game is live, and then they do a
little bit of a show.”
Woods scored the job with the Nationals through his work with the Horizons.
His close friend Dave Jannuzzi, another former standout at Meyers and later at
Wilkes University, is also on the team.
The head coach of the Horizons, Al Clocker, who is also a scout for the
Nationals, told John Ferrari, the general manager of the Nationals, about
Woods’ game. Clocker is Wilkes-Barre’s public works director.
Ferrari also liked what he saw.
“Mr. Ferrari came and saw a couple of our games,” says Woods. “They had
three openings for this European tour, and they called me last Monday.”
Woods, who as a point-guard for Meyers and was the MVP of the 1993 Wyoming
Valley Conference All-Star Game, also played basketball for Luzerne County
Community College. He’ll leave with the Nationals on April 10 for eight weeks
and will visit France, Belgium, Spain, Holland and the United Kingdom.
Woods says that as a youth, he would often shoot hoops on the city’s courts
for 10 hours a day. His love for the game has never waned.
“It’s just the competitiveness and the challenge,” he says. “There’s
nights you can go in there, and you couldn’t hit the side of a barn with a
basketball, and there’s nights you go in where you’re just grooving, where
shots are falling and things are happening.”
Prior to his job as a security officer, Woods had worked with the Luzerne
County Recreation Department and at the Luzerne County Correctional Facility.
While he’s traveling with the Globetrotters tour, he’s requested a leave of
absence from his job and will receive no salary or benefits. He says his
position might still be there when he returns, but he’s received no guarantee.
There’s also a good chance that after the European tour, he’ll be retained by
the Nationals for the Globetrotters’ tour of the Caribbean.
Woods, who is single and has no children, says it’s a good time to take on
some adventure.
“At what other point in my life and I going to be able to go to Europe for
virtually nothing?” he says. “Globetrotter basketball over there is bigger
than it is here. It’s something I can always say that I did, and it’s just a
great, great opportunity.”