Coral Springs basketball court renamed after local tournament founder and veteran
The main basketball court at the Coral Springs Gymnasium became the Jim Reilly Championship Court last weekend, honoring a pillar of the region’s amateur basketball community.
Jim Reilly is known as a local legend thanks to his decades improving athletics opportunities for young people — from coaching 8-year-olds during his early days in Coral Springs to running one of the most prestigious high school basketball tournaments in the nation.
He founded the tournament in 1990 as a memorial to friend and fellow volunteer Jim Kreul, who led coaching and fundraising efforts for club and AAU basketball teams in the city and is credited as a founder of amateur basktball in Coral Springs. Kreul died of a heart attack at age 43 while playing the game, leaving behind his wife and five children, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported.
In the decades that followed, the Kreul Classic drew scouts from top schools and brought in major celebrities like NBA and Olympic basketball coach Chuck Daly to speak with players and coaches.
Reilly, who is also a Vietnam War veteran, was inducted into the Broward County Sports Hall of Fame in 2018, with judges praising his work on the tournament and in other high school basketball efforts.
The City of Coral Springs has also recently honored the late Jennifer Brown, naming its softball facilities after her. Brown, 48 , was a leader in the sport who died in May after a yearslong battle with metastatic breast cancer.
