The Long Game: Pulaski native sets a world record for a good cause

By WILLIAM PAINE

Patriot Publishing

It’s well understood that Anthony Akers, who serves as Pulaski County’s Assistant Administrator, loves the game of basketball. Akers was a standout basketball player at PCHS and kept playing through his college years. He shot hoops in the Pulaski Men’s League for years until a serious knee injury put a halt to his play. These days Anthony coaches the Pulaski County High School boys’ basketball team and still shoots a mean three pointer, though he doesn’t bound down the court quite as fast as he used to.

Last October, Anthony received a phone call that would, after an intense physical and mental ordeal, result in his name being added to the Guinness Book of World Records.

The phone call was from Bruce Deel, the CEO of the City of Refuge, a service-based organization dedicated to meeting the needs of the disadvantaged. The City of Refuge Pulaski is one of many satellites but the City of Refuge was founded in, and is based out of, Atlanta.

“For years we took kids down to the City of Refuge,” said Akers. “I’m really good friends with Bruce Deel, the CEO. He’s a mentor to me and I glean from his wisdom.”

That day in October, Deel asked Akers to be a player in the longest basketball game that has ever been played in the history of basketball. Akers was intrigued by this unusual offer and agreed to play.

“Then a week later I told him I probably can’t because I couldn’t dedicate enough physical preparation to it because of basketball season approaching and knowing that I come home at nine or ten every night,” Akers admitted. “I didn’t want to back out on him at the last minute by any means. So, I told him if someone dropped out, check with me at the end of the season and I might reconsider. Well, as fate would have it, someone dropped out and Bruce asked me if I would reconsider right after the last week of my basketball season. So, I said yes.”

Akers accepted the challenge, but it wasn’t for the sake of notoriety. Deel had organized this ultra-marathon basketball game to bring attention to Men Opposed to Sex Trafficking, aka MOST. Deel formed MOST to provide support and shelter to victims of sex trafficking. As part of their mission, MOST has rescued women and children from dangerous and exploitative situations.

“I felt it was the right thing to do when Bruce called,” said Akers. “It was like the Lord saying this is the right thing to do.”

On the morning of Sunday, March 16, Akers found himself at the Landmark Christian School gym, in Fairburn, Georgia. He was one of the 12 members of the Grey Team. Their opponents, the White Team, also had 12 members.

To break the record, the world’s longest basketball game was set to start at 9 a.m. Sunday, March 16 and continue uninterrupted until 10 a.m. Friday morning, March 21^st, for a mind-boggling stretch of 121 hours.

“You can’t waiver from any of the rules,” said Akers. “So, it started at nine o’clock sharp.”

Unlike Anthony, the majority of the players came from close by and had ties to the City of Refuge South in nearby Thomaston, Georgia. The most significant difference between Akers and the other players was his age. Akers was one of only three players over the age of 50. The youngest player was a 17-year-old high school hoopster, but the vast majority of the ballers were in their 20’s and 30’s.

To be officially recognized by the Guiness Book of World Records, players had to adhere to stringent rules.

“It’s one continuous game that cannot stop,” said Akers. “There are no timeouts. You can’t stop the game for any reason. You could not leave the gym. You had a five-minute bathroom break or five-minute shower. You had to report to the desk and give them your name and number. You had to really determine when you had to go to the bathroom and when you wanted a shower. I think I took four showers that week.”

Breaking or even bending the rules could have serious consequences.

“So, no player got to be in a shower or bathroom past five minutes at a time,” Akers explained. “You could not breach that time or, if you did, it could cost the record … and you didn’t want to be that guy.”

Each team was split into two units, which allowed half the team to play while the other six rested. Five players would be on the floor and the sixth man would be the substitute. The subs rotated into play every 10 minutes and another player would take his place on the bench.

“The first day, everybody’s going to play just like a real game,” Akers recounted. “Then you began a regimented schedule that evening, as to when you were playing and when you were not. During the daytime, you either played one hour on, one hour off, or two hours on and two hours off. The most difficult section of play was late at night into the a.m., when you only got five hours of sleep. While six were sleeping for five hours, six were playing. Because they lost a player, the White Team had to play all five players with no substitutes for 5 hours during the night. The five-hour straight play was absolutely brutal.”

“In the first four hours of the first game, a young man about 23 years old twisted his knee and was automatically gone,” Akers recounted. “So, the White Team was down to 11 after about four hours, and the last thing you wanted was to lose a player. But they told us before, ‘I’m sorry if anybody gets hurt or anything like that, you have to get off the court immediately.”’

Each team was provided with plenty of food and for those 5 hours of rest, six cots were set up behind each bench.

“You shared a cot with a teammate,” said Akers. “Me and Bruce (Deel) shared a cot because we were never sleeping at the same time. There were a lot of times during the day when everybody is awake. Sometimes you could take a nap for about an hour, but most people would sit up in a chair because laying down can be counterproductive. You get so stiff that you almost want to sit up in the chair and watch until it’s your turn again.”

Is sleeping courtside really possible?

“You put these gel plugs in your ears that they recommended and you put a mask over your eyes,” said Akers. “The very first night I hardly slept any because the whistles were blowing and the balls were bouncing.  But then once you’re so tired, you do fall asleep with the mask on.”

Day after day the dribbling continued. To make sure it was a legitimate effort, the MOST basketball game was livestreamed to ensure that rules were followed. Officials, two of them former NBA players, made certain that players moved up and down the court and that the 24 second shot clock rule was enforced. Fouls were also called and if any player received six fouls, they would be ousted from the game. After two hours, however, the foul count reset back to zero and though some came close, no one fouled out.

As the game ground on, players would find ways to keep their motivation.

“The score didn’t really matter, but we would play little games in our head, like, who’s going to win the next two hours,” Akers recounted. “Due to fatigue or something, the White Team might win the next five hours or we might say we outscored them by 100 points in the last five hours. Some of us made a point of getting the score back in order. It got pretty competitive at times.”

Deel compared playing in this basketball game to running five marathons, but the struggle to endure wasn’t entirely physical.

“I’ll be honest, by Tuesday my mind was playing tricks on me,” he admitted. “I was almost delusional. I had to ask myself if I was willing to stay and I think several others felt the same way, but here’s what kicked it over. You had victims of trafficking come every day to the gym from the House of Cherith. They would cheer us on and they would write us letters talking about their experiences in life. Once you read those letters and you heard those people cheering, that made you extremely, extremely motivated … because we chose this. The victims of sex trafficking did not choose to be victims.”

Sometimes even though the mind is willing, the body has limitations.

“They had masseuses and trainers come and if it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t have made it,” Akers confessed. “At one point the gym seemed to be spinning and I had to ask myself if I really wanted to remain. I couldn’t lift my shoe on Wednesday … I couldn’t lift it.  Then they would make it so I could play again.”

By early Friday morning, the players began to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

“The windows of the gym are up really high and it was pretty dreary all week, but the very last day the sun shined in the gym so bright that we could hardly see that side of the gym,” said Anthony. “It felt absolutely divine.”

The world’s longest basketball game ended at 10:02 a.m. on Friday, March 21 with the White Team prevailing over the Grey Team by a score of 13,076 to 12,972.

Anthony played on the Grey Team and per his request, I will not publish his estimated (and impressive) score count, but it’s very likely he led both squads in three-point shots.

The guy from Guinness came for the last 8 hours of the contest and after reviewing all documentation, declared that this was indeed the longest basketball game ever played and would be recorded as such by the Guiness Book of World Records.

As a side note, each player was physically playing for 70 hours during the basketball game.

“Afterwards, I had women come up to me and say, ‘Thank you. We know what real men are.’ They saw as an example where we were sacrificing ourselves for them. The whole premise behind this is that we wanted to show women and children what real men would do for them. We are for you. We support you and we chose to do this. They didn’t choose the life that they’ve had to live.”

After the game Akers went to the City of Refuge South and slept 9 hours. He then drove home and slept another 13 hours. His feet got the worst of it, but his shoulders and hips are also plenty sore.

“There was a lot of limping going on towards the end, but a lot of people are saying that mentally, it’s the best thing they’ve ever done because of the stories they heard,” said Akers.

It was truly a long, long game.

“I don’t know how to describe it, but it tested every fiber of my being,” said Akers of the game. “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done physically. Nothing else even comes close.”

Contributions to Men Opposed to Sex Trafficking (MOST) can be made by going to their website at wearemost.org.