The Little Dribblers youth basketball organization recently announced that they will vacate their Levelland location in June to transition to fully online.
The organization has resided at their location at 911 Houston Street, Levelland, Texas, since 1999. Little Dribblers was originally founded in Levelland in 1969 after four local dads desired to create a community- based youth basketball program that developed kids as basketball players, equipping them with basketball fundamentals and skills, and life skills.
The only living founder remaining, Harold Phelan, passed the program onto his son Pat Phelan in 1984, and Pat and his wife Cara have been running it since.
Since then, Little Dribblers has sprouted up leagues at the national level, but now it’s primarily all over the state of Texas, with too many leagues to count.
All the local leagues compete in their seasons and then pick all-star teams, which go to compete in Regional Tournaments to try and make the National Tournament and win the championship. The teams range from eight and under to 14 and under.
Little Dribblers is alive and well, so the transition out of the Levelland location to fully online is solely due to the fact that a physical location was unnecessary. The Phelan’s were already primarily running the organization out of their home anyways due to everything being online nowadays, so it just made sense.
Though they won’t have the building anymore, the organization’s purpose to “promote youth basketball” remains unchanged as they continue to invest into the next generation, believing that “the stars of tomorrow are today’s Little Dribblers.”
Little Dribblers has a rich history of holding tournaments in Levelland but has gone a couple of years without one. Pat Phelan noted the break is intentional to give the Levelland volunteer base a break and ensured it wasn’t due to falling out of love with the city.
“Levelland puts on the best tournaments and has some of the better facilities that we’ve been in,” Pat Phelan said. “They’ve always been very good to Little Dribblers Basketball, and the relationship still is very good, whether it’s been us being involved with the youth programs or on the outside running the organization that’s based and founded in Levelland.”
Little Dribblers doesn’t currently have a goal date for their tournament return to Levelland as they have awarded tournaments through 2029, but they do intend to have more in Levelland in the future.
Regardless of when they return, the Levelland community can be proud as the native city to such a great organization that continues to develop and equip the next generation.