Bedford Road Collegiate Redhawks kick off 52nd annual BRIT Thursday

The 52nd annual Bedford Road Invitational Tournament (BRIT) gets underway Thursday afternoon.

Head coach of the host Bedford Road Collegiate Redhawks, Eric Fahid, said the tournament is a big deal for the entire school and the city’s basketball community as a whole.

“For the school, it’s everything. All the students are involved, even if they are not on the team whether it is part of the palm squads that are performing, whether it is being volunteers for the concession, score keeping— everything. It’s such a sense of pride for the school,” he said.

“For us as the home school there is so much anticipation and excitement built around it, as well a little extra pressure. My second year we had a big upset win against Holy Cross in front of the school so it was definitely cool to see the reverberations of that win echo across the city. I had coaches texting me, calling me, congratulating me that I had never met so it is definitely cool that you kind of know that you are on a little bit of a stage.”

One of Bedford’s starters, Aman Khan is feeling the excitement heading into his 3rd BRIT.

“It’s very exciting to play every year,” he said. “There are some good teams, one year Australia came, so this is a very exciting tournament. So I am really pumped up to play in this again.”

However, according to Fahid, this year’s tournament will have a little bit different feel to it after the passing of long-time tournament organizer and prominent member of the city’s basketball scene, Kelly Bowers.

“He was the man, he was everything for the tournament and he would do anything for it. His booming voice kind of echoed through the hallways, through the gymnasium. And what stood out to me was how much he loved every little bit,” said Fahid.

“This year it’s just going to be a little bit different and we are just going to have to pick up the slack. Kelly is all about being positive, being loud, having fun, so we are going to make sure we kind of echo that throughout the tournament.”

The Redhawks start the tournament off against Handsworth High School from B.C., a team that has won BRIT multiple times in the past.

“Everyone’s team goal is just to win it all but we are in the mindset of ya win every game and compete as hard as we can for those 32 minutes,” said Khan. “Our first game is risky because it is with Handsworth and I hear they have four appearances and four wins so that’s going to be a tough game, but we’ll give it all we got. But I think that second game, the afternoon game, is going to be the one that everyone comes and watches, it’s going to be very pumped.”