A look at Augusta's minor league scene

You’ve got to hand it to Augusta mayor Deke Copenhaver. The city’s new professional basketball team, the Augusta Groove, has held two news conferences since its creation, and Copenhaver has attended both. Not only that, he’s thrown his full support behind the new franchise and called the team a welcomed addition to Augusta’s minor league landscape at a news conference last week to announce the team’s agreement to play its home games at Augusta State. Clearly, Copenhaver’s a basketball fan. 

“Augusta definitely is a basketball town and continues to grow in that way,” he said at the news conference. “This week we’ve got the Peach Jam going on just across the river, and that’s one of the really most highly anticipated high school basketball events in the nation… We have the NBA champion head coach Doc Rivers has been in town this week. So we are a basketball town. Augusta State making it to the finals this year, Glenn Hills winning a state championship and now to bring on the Groove to really build on that momentum.” 

Of course, not everyone agrees with the idea of Augusta as a basketball town, but it certainly has grown as a minor league town. In 2005, the city had only two teams, the Augusta GreenJackets and Augusta Lynx. We’ve had two teams, the Aiken Foxhounds and Augusta Spartans, come and go, but the Augusta Colts and now Augusta Groove have been added to the mix to double the local minor league offering.

That’s not counting the various local amateur teams trying to carve out a spot in the Augusta sports market like the CSRA Cobras, Georgia Ragin’ Bulls and Augusta Razorbacks (did I miss any?). What’s next? Women’s professional football? I hear they’re looking for new franchises. Charlotte has a team. So does Pensacola. 

All kidding aside, professional baseball, hockey, indoor football and now basketball are all available to the Augusta masses. The cream of the crop, the Augusta GreenJackets, are in first place in their division right now and, on top of that, have earned national recognition for their most recent promotional stunt here and here, with expanding coverage all the way to the West Coast.

Of course, two of the other three local minor league teams are without head coaches. But that will change soon (that’s called a tease). And we have no clue how good (or bad) the Groove will be when the season starts in January. They’ve only invited four guys to training camp so far with a July 26 tryout at May Park still to come, but one of those guys, NAIA Third Team All-American Kedrick Johnson, looks pretty impressive on YouTube.

Perhaps that’s why the mayor was smiling at that news conference last week.

“I’m very excited about this,” he said. “I encourage the community to come out and support the Groove and get your Groove on with me.”