Over the Mountain (OTM) is a competition-based basketball league (3rd - 6th grade boys) for member communities, that was started in 1996 by Conrad Rafield, a Mountain Brook resident.  To this day, Mountain Brook administrates the OTM league.  The league's purpose is to provide an opportunity for more highly skilled basketball players to play more competitive basketball while preserving community recreation leagues in the over the mountain communities.  The league is generally grade based rather than age based.  

Current member communities include: 

Mountain Brook * Vestavia * Homewood * Hoover * Trussville * Spain Park * Oak Mountain

It is possible that non-member teams (from other communities) will join the league from year to year.  However, the above listed communities are the member communities that have first priority to participate in the OTM league each year.  

The league runs from the first week of January each year, to the first week of March, and plays on Sundays at various gyms in the over the mountain communities.   

 Generally, there are 12 teams per grade.  

Each community has a community representative that is responsible for, among other things, determining what competitive teams should be added to OTM per community.  

OTM is not an individual child registration league.  Rather, it is a team-based registration league meaning only full teams register for the league together as a group.  And, those teams are pre-selected prior to registration by the community representative for each community. OTM is unique to traditional AAU programs and very competitive in that the team members from each community must all live in the same zoned school district for the community, or all feed into the same high school.  Hence, OTM offers what the young men will experience competitively when they get to junior high, at an elementary level.  

 Many players from the OTM league have gone on to excel in high school and college in basketball and other sports, including the following league alumni: