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Chad Jones’ travel itinerary for the remainder of this summer is envious.

However, while not quite so glamorous, he also derived plenty of satisfaction from making the 27-mile roundtrip to Kearney each Sunday in June.

After five years of playing host to the local high school summer basketball league, Jones was ready to hand it off to someone else for the 2009 edition.

"It wears on you," Jones admitted. "Games start at 4 and they end at 10 at night. It just gets to be really long."

Into the void stepped Kearney coach Gary Belcher, who offered to run both this year’s varsity league — which came to a close Sunday, June 28 — as well as the junior varsity and freshman versions that will wrap up tonight at Kearney Middle School.

"I made sure there was a place for us to go before I turned it over," Jones said.

By doing so, it freed him up to spend more time focused on X’s and O’s this summer with an experienced varsity team looking to add to its string of five consecutive district title game appearances once the 2009-10 season arrives.

"It allowed me more time to work with my team rather than worrying about, ‘Is the referee going to show up? Is this team going to be here on time?" Jones said.

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