MOULTRIE — When Boyd Anderson High boys basketball coach Eugene Richardson met Kirven Davis, his counterpart at Colquitt County High last summer, he said if there was a holiday tournament in Moultrie, he would like to bring his team up from Lauderdale Lakes, Fla.

When Davis was putting together this year’s first Roundball Classic, he called Richardson, who jumped at the chance to bring his team north.

And it was not just because it gave his team a chance to travel out of state and go up against some different competition.

Richardson is an old Packer himself, as are a number of his relatives. And the tournament, which opens today and will run through Saturday, will be a homecoming of sorts for Richardson.

His brothers Calvin and Larry were outstanding players for the Packers as well. So were his sisters Gwen and Angie. And Gwen’s son Jamey Richardson had an excellent career for the Packers and at the collegiate level.

All of them are going to try meet at the gymnasium this weekend.

“This is a wonderful opportunity to come home,” Richardson said Wednesday after his Cobras worked out at the Gladys Espy Gymnasium.

Richardson played for Moultrie High Packers basketball teams coached by Roy Saturday before graduating in 1973. He played collegiately at Bethune-Cookman in Daytona Beach, Fla., and took a couple of shots at playing in the NBA before playing professionally in Europe.

When his playing days were through, he began teaching and soon took over the middle school basketball program at Everglades Middle School in Florida.

His first high school head coaching job came at Coconut Creek High School in Broward County, where he took his team to the state tournament several times.

Now in his fourth season at Boyd Anderson, he continues to roll up the victories.

The Cobras have lost just 15 games over the last three seasons, he said, but Richardson has not been able to get the team to the state tournament.

That could change this season. After going 21-9 last year, the Cobras are off to an 11-2 start are are ranked No. 3 in the state.

The Cobras will start two sophomores, a junior and two seniors when they meet the Packers at 8:30 tonight in the final game of the first day of the tournament.

“We’re young, but we play a lot of people,” Richardson said.

Richardson was surprised to learn that the old Moultrie High gym, where he and his Packers teammates — who included Ray Goff — played in front of some large and loud crowds, is awaiting the wrecking ball.

But he likes the Packers new home, now almost a quarter of a century old itself.

“It’s a beautiful facility,” he said.