2009 Firefighter Olympics: Basketball Event

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The Anaheim Firefighters Association hosted the 2009 Firefighter Summer Olympics, which featured 2,000 firefighter athletes competing in 31 games.  One of the largest competitions this year was Basketball, with both 3 on 3 and 5 on 5 teams.

According to Captain Chris Albin of the Anaheim Fire Department, the games featured two divisions.  Division One was comprised of fire departments with 499 or more uniformed personnel, while Division Two was made of departments with less than 499 firefighters.

The 5 on 5 competition lasted for four days, with some of the players having been on their teams for over twenty years.  The spirit of the games was that of camaraderie and friendly competition. Captain Percy Jones, the Coach for the Los Angeles Fire Department explains, "It is kind of like a family.  You get to see some of the guys you haven't seen in while, up North, down South."

Dimitrius Lynch, the Team Captain for the Los Angeles Fire Department Basketball Team, says that this year was a year of adjustment for his team, as they have several new members and some of their old members joined the Compton Fire Department's team.  The newly combined Compton FD/LAFD team proved to be strong amongst the Division One teams.   Jeremy Carter a Firefighter/Paramedic with the Compton FD/LAFD team says, "This hasn't been an easy three games to win.  We've worked hard.  We were losing this last game that we won, and we played some hard defense, some really, really hard defense, and we came back and won."

Many of the players practice twice a week throughout the year, and some have had college level basketball experience.

The winner of the 3 on 3 tournament was the Richmond Fire Department.  The Division One winner of the 5 on 5 tournament was the Compton FD/LAFD team, with the San Francisco Fire Department taking home the silver and the Sacramento Metro Fire Department winning the bronze metal.

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