CULLMAN, Ala. – Basketball season may be over for schools across the state, but for the Krossover Basketball Association (K.B.A.), things are just getting started. K.B.A. is entering its third season after being founded by Patrick Gambrill in 2016.
Gambrill has coached basketball for 20 years from the youth level to the high school level and last coached in public school at Addison in 2015. Gambrill was named the Winston County Coach of the Year during the 2014 season.
Along with Gambrill, this year’s coaching staff is made up of Cullman County Schools Superintendent Dr. Shane Barnette, Landon Stidham from Hamilton, who played basketball at Welch College, Caleb Barnett from West Point, Josh Sellers, associate pastor at Mt. Zion Baptist Church and Jeremy Creel of Hayden.
Gambrill founded the league because he wanted his faith to be central to his team’s philosophy and he saw some obstacles to that in public schools and in traditional Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) Basketball.
“This is our third year and I started this because I wanted to put the Christian values back into basketball and in the public-school setting, there’s just a road block there. There are less avenues to be able to use Christ as a platform. When you play AAU ball, it’s normally Friday, Saturday and Sunday tournaments and Sunday of course is usually the championship games. It got to a point that all travel ball, even baseball and soccer, was just taking away people’s family time,” Gambrill said. “I felt myself just taking my Sunday and being really stressed out so what I decided to do in AAU ball was find tournaments that just played on Friday and Saturday but also, if we were in a championship game on Sunday, we would just elect not to play that game. We’re still getting plenty of basketball in, we’re just walking away on Sundays.”
K.B.A. has been able to use the facilities at Cullman First Church of the Nazarene for practices and team meetings. The church has been the home of the Upward Basketball program for years and Gambrill wants to bring that model to his league.
“Pastor Scott Sessions of Cullman First Church of the Nazarene has let us use the Nazarene Church to facilitate practices. As many Cullmanites know, the Cullman First Church of the Nazarene has hosted Upward Basketball for close to two decades. We mock our program after the upward program,” Gambrill said. “We are more competitive of course, but, like Upward, we use the concept of God as the center. We want to be different than other academies and clubs. God calls each Christian to be different from the world. God himself is holy and set apart from the world. That's our goal. To teach these young men to be set apart.”
Gambrill has had two sons play basketball and found that the values he tried to teach didn’t always line up with high school sports. That environment is what first caused him to think about the idea of approaching basketball in a different way.
“I had two boys playing basketball, one a sixth-grader and one an eighth-grader. I was teaching my kids that there was more than basketball so, I was sitting in a high school gym and was listening to the warm up song and the language and the description of things happening in the song caused my youngest son to look at me. I thought to myself, ‘If you played this song in class, you get in trouble, but at a sporting event, it's OK.’ Then, I went on to notice them more at other high school games. I could even see the players singing them under their breath as they warmed up to it. I became concerned, upset and worried,” Gambrill said. “My kids would soon be in high school. Then, as I see technical fouls being given to disrespectful players and be cheered on by crowds, players and coaches, I felt burdened. The sport that I have always enjoyed was being ruined. Players talking back to coaches, coaches overlooking actions and attitude to get a win. This wasn’t at just one school but seemed to be growing quickly everywhere even though there are still some schools that hold kids accountable and standards are important.”
It was actually Gambrill’s wife who pitched the idea of starting a league, and since that day, K.B.A. has grown at an impressive rate.
“I prayed for an avenue to reach the boys. My wife said, ‘Why don't you start your own academy?’ I laughed and then started thinking. Then, I started praying. Finally, we kicked it off with tryouts,” Gambrill said. “The first year, 2016, we had 11 players, being one seventh-grade team. During the 2017 season, we grew to 21 players with a seventh-grade team and an eighth-grade team. By the 2018 season, we had 66 players and seven teams. The current 2019 season consists of 75 players and we have seven teams; 11U, 12U, 13U, 14U, two 15U teams and a 16U team.”
For Gambrill, incorporating Christian values is the priority and deciding how they spend their time is a big part of that. His teams don’t play on Sundays and that’s because he wants his players to spend that time with their families.
“K.B.A. is taking the stand to say that Sunday is not about playing travel baseball, basketball, soccer or competing in gymnastics. Sunday is the Sabbath for us and we’re going to keep it holy and we’re going to worship and spend time with our families. That is our biggest priority,” Gambrill said. “We’re having T-shirts made this year that say, ‘We’re the Chick-fil-A of basketball,’ and we know they’re closed on Sundays because of what they stand for so K.B.A. does the same thing.”
The league is very focused on Christian faith, and Gambrill understands that won’t appeal to everyone, but he and K.B.A. want everyone they can get to join their family.
“K.B.A. isn't for everyone. Over the last three years, I have saw some people want the basketball, but not the gospel. That is sometimes hard to swallow, but everyone has a choice where they want to buy something or eat dinner. Sometimes K.B.A. is about the cross (Kross). K.B.A. isn't for everyone, but we want everyone,” Gambrill said. “We want broken families, good families and families that want their children to understand that after basketball life comes. Hopefully, we can use K.B.A. as a platform to share God, who wants to have a relationship with each player and hopefully they will one day. We want our players to be a light to the world on and off the court. If you want your son to get more than just basketball, we would love to have him.”
