Nintendo Gameplay Counselor Basketball Team

Nintendo Game Play Counselors had an internal basketball team!  An NES insider @archon1981 shared his story with us. Stephan Reese, aka @archon1981 an avid NES collector, and NES historian has recreated a GPC (Game Play Counselor) desk as it was in 1992 for an exhibit he’s doing at the famous Portland Retro Gaming Expo on October 18th-20th 2019. Stephan obtained a Jersey worn by a GPC counselor that was on the basketball team. He recounts the history behind it in the words of the former GPC below.

From the Counselor:

At the time, outside the Nintendo headquarters, Nintendo installed a half court hoop that a bunch of us would play pick up games at. The court was even fitted with a light and there were times we could be found playing games late at night on non-working nights. One of the managers decided that it would be fun to put together a basketball team that could play league games in local rec leagues in the Redmond, WA area. It was mainly just for fun for us and gave us the ability to compete against others, but once the word was out that the “Game Counselors” were playing in a certain league the gyms began to fill up with young kids hoping to meet us or get autographs or, more often than anything else, ask us questions on games. We played for about two seasons. But the other teams began to get frustrated that so many people were showing up for the games that we were eventually asked to play elsewhere, so we discontinued playing in leagues and mainly just played pick up games here and there around Seattle.

For more info and to follow Stephan:
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