Mike Perry wasn’t sure what to say. Team White Mamba’s head coach had just called timeout after they went down 19 points to Uptown Basketball with less than 10 minutes remaining in the MADE Hoops 16U championship game, and they needed an answer. They needed a spark.
Then came the voice of Tony Gallo.
Gallo, who runs White Mamba’s North Shore division, was on the bench for the title game in Baltimore, Md., and he spoke up in the huddle. He told them to fight, and then he thought outside the box: He told them to start chirping to the other team. It was certainly unorthodox, but it was embraced.
“He was like, ‘We need to change the energy. We need to start talking (expletive),’” Perry recalled. “I was like honestly, Tony, I’m all for that right now.”
