VALDOSTA –– Professional basketball is on its way to Valdosta.

Starting Friday, the Valdosta Shockers of the American Basketball Association (ABA) are holding a three-day tryout at the Lake Laurie Boys and Girls Club. The tryout carries a $50 registration fee and concludes on Sunday, Dec. 17.

Former Valdosta Wildcats basketball standout Jeremy Fountain, owner of 360 Elite Basketball Training, spearheads the effort to bring the ABA to Valdosta. Fountain, 27, played point guard on the Wildcats’ 2009 team that went 28-2 and advanced to its first Elite Eight appearance in 10 years.

Most college and professional tryouts are conducted all in one day. However, for the Shockers tryout, Fountain elected to hold the evaluations over three days. A big reason, Fountain says, is to give players a chance to show well and a fair shot to make the roster.

“The tryouts start this weekend from the 15th to the 17th,” Fountain said. “(Tryouts) are usually one day, but I’m giving guys three days because you never know, a guy could come in and have a bad day, that’s why I give them three days to really prove what they have.

“Tryouts would consist of 3-on-2 fast breaks, figure-8 drills, sprints, jump shots and learning to play off the pick-and-roll because at the professional level, there’s a lot of pick-and-roll play. I’m kind of trying to pick (players’) brains and see who is where and what type of guy that player is to see if they would be able to fit in our program.”

Despite Valdosta being known predominantly for football, Fountain sees a lot of potential to grow the game and provide a platform for basketball players in the area to showcase their abilities. Through the ABA and his training company, Fountain wants to foster opportunities for players in the city.

“I think (the ABA) could be really big (here),” Fountain said. “We have a lot of talent in basketball here and a lot of the guys’ mindsets are…they want to play but people won’t take a chance on them. So, I kind of shortened my career to be able to give those guys an opportunity to be able to be called a professional and play professional ball.”

After his high school career, Fountain played collegiately at Albany Tech before playing professionally in the NBA’s D-League for the Austin Toros and two years in the ABA for the South Coast Fire.

When it comes to bringing the ABA to his hometown, Fountain sought advice from former coach Rufus McDuffie and other connections from his time in the ABA to set up the schedule for the Shockers’ inaugural ABA campaign.

“I’ve actually done it all myself,” Fountain said. “I used a couple of my old coaches and other guys that I know that started ABA teams and other coaches and I connected with them to make a schedule for the first year and then the second year would be a bigger schedule and we would play more games.”

Basketball fans will not have to wait long to see the Shockers in action as the team will hold its Meet the Team scrimmage on Dec. 31. From there, the Shockers open their season on Jan. 7 in Dublin against the Middle Georgia Pits.

The ABA may sound familiar to many basketball fans as the league was a popular alternative to the NBA from its inception in 1967 until its merger with the NBA in 1976.

Geographically, starting a franchise in South Georgia makes sense. The defending ABA champions, the Jacksonville Giants, have seen the most success since the league’s reincarnation in 2000. In fact, the Giants are tied with the Shreveport-Bossier City Mavericks for the most titles in league history with four each.

During Fountain’s time with the South Coast Fire, he paid close attention to the Giants and how they ran things. As his passion grew for wanting to make a difference in Valdosta through basketball, seeing the Giants’ success sparked his idea to launch plans to start a franchise where he grew up.

“I actually played against the Giants when I played for the South Coast Fire,” Fountain said. “I played against them three or four times in my seasons in the ABA. I like the way they handle their program and how big it’s gotten. 

“I was always thinking––even when I was playing against them––that we have the same talent in Valdosta. It’s just…somebody needs to help these guys bring it out and I guess I’m that guy to do so. Even with the tryouts, I’ve actually been promoting it for about two weeks now and I have guys coming from all the surrounding counties so we’re looking for a big turn-out on tryout day on the 15th at 8 o’clock.”

At 27, Fountain still fits firmly in the prime years of a professional basketball player. The 6-foot, 185-pound lefty guard carved out a niche in the pros with his exception ball-handling, quickness and scoring ability. Though Fountain’s playing career is on hold, he isn’t quite closing the door on lacing up his sneakers again.

“I had workouts with the NBA D-League team, the Greensboro Swarm in North Carolina and another team,” Fountain said. “My registration got messed up so that’s basically folded on me. But I mean if that opportunity presented itself, I probably wouldn’t take it because now I’m more into helping these kids and helping them get where I’ve been and hopefully past where I’ve been to be able to say they played on an NBA level. But, within the next year or so, if it presents itself, I wouldn’t mind.”

Of course, Valdosta will always be known as Winnersville USA as the longstanding Lowndes-Valdosta rivalry rages on. For Fountain, establishing the Shockers could achieve his grand vision of unifying the city and its youth through basketball.

“It would mean a lot to me because I care about these guys and I’m actually trying to create a brotherhood,” Fountain said. “Especially with the violence and all the crime that’s going on in the city, I think something like this would be big for the city and bring the city together as far as the communities, as far as helping out with the young kids coming up nowadays because a lot of the violence is actually coming from a lot of the younger kids.

“It’s basically to help reach out to them. We would be in the school system, we would do a lot of charity games, put on games for middle schools and elementary kids to come out and have these guys really tell their stories and to really help lead them on the right path so they won’t be making the same mistakes over and over again. So, it would mean a lot to me for this to turn out and be huge.”