| The fifth annual James
Lafferty One Tree Hill Charity Basketball
Game was part real athletic event, part
Hollywood. A DJ played music while actors
dribbled down the court. Free throws were
shot shirtless. And the second half was
almost delayed because Jackson Brundage,
the 6-year-old actor who plays Jamie on
the filmed-in-Wilmington series, was so
caught up dancing on the court, Lafferty
had to pick him up and plop him down on
the sidelines. Each
year, Lafferty, who plays basketball
mentor Nathan Scott on The CW drama,
hosts the game in Wilmington to thank his
fans for their support and to raise money
for various charities.
This year, the money raised
at the event went to St. Jude
Children’s Research Hospital,
Wilmington Family YMCA and Winnie’s
Garden.
“I think it’s a
great opportunity for fans of the show to
meet the cast and I think it’s for a
great cause,” said Chloe Glenn, a 21-year-old
fan from New Jersey.
She and her friend,
Michelle DuBois, 24, from Atlanta, have
attended the games for the past two years.
Other fans came from as far away as
Canada, Ohio and Florida. The winners of
a recent Macy’s Weekend in
Wilmington contest attended, too. After
the game, they were on their way to a
party with the cast and a private concert
by musician and fifth season guest star
Kate Voegele.
The night before the game,
DuBois and Glenn got their own special
encounter. While walking around downtown
Wilmington, they ran into Joe Manganiello,
who plays Owen the bartender this season.
To their surprise, he stopped and talked
with them.
“They’re just
good people, down to earth,” DuBois
said of the cast.
DuBois and Glenn were among
the 1,300 fans who paid $25 a ticket to
see the cast and crew. Tickets, which
went on sale more than a month ago, sold
out in less than 10 minutes.
Saturday’s game began at 11 a.m.,
but many fans showed up hours in advance
and many stayed late into the afternoon.
The game, a face-off
between the “old” and
“new” lineups of Tree Hill
Ravens (the series’ fictional high-school
team), started out tough for
Lafferty’s home team. The actor, who
won his high school’s MVP award in
basketball, wore his character’s old
black jersey.
Helping him out were co-stars
Antwon Tanner (who plays Skills), Stephen
Colletti (Chase), Vaughn Wilson (Fergie)
and others.
The newbies, who included
Manganiello and wore white jerseys,
racked up points early on. Laffety’s
team fought back to end the first half 40-37.
But the momentum did not
last. The gamed ended with the new cast
members pulling off 89 points to the old
school-ers’ 83.
It probably did not help
that Brundage, Sophia Bush (Brooke), Lee
Norris (Mouth) and the show’s
creator, Mark Schwahn, had microphones on
the sidelines and were giving the players
a hard time.
“The new Ravens have
the lead, but the old Ravens have more
screen time,” Schwahn announced at
one point to the crowd. “But I think
if the new Ravens continue to have the
lead, they’ll have even less screen
time.”
It’s likely most fans
will not remember the details of the game,
however. After the two 20-minute halves,
most of the 1,300 fans queued up to wait
(and wait) to seek autographs from cast
members armed with uncapped Sharpies. The
cast signed everything from DVDs and
inflatable pink flamingoes to posters and
the shirts on fans’ backs.
Meanwhile, crew members
stood in the center of the court and
auctioned off items from the set. The
first item, a photo with the cast in
attendance, went for $1,000 cash.
Scores of happy teenage
girls walked out of Cape Fear Community
College’s Shwartz Center giggling
and firmly clutching their autographs.
“I expected chaos,”
said 17-year-old fan Elizabeth Reese from
Virginia. This was her first game.
“I watched all season, religiously.”
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