Over the Mountain League History and Overview

Over the Mountain (OTM) is a competition-based basketball league (2nd - 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. 



Current member communities

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


OTM League Information


The league runs from the first week of January to the end of February. OTM games are played on Sundays at various gyms in the over the mountain communities. 

Generally, there are 12 teams per grade. The league is generally grade based rather than age based. 

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 a 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, A unique offering

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.


OTM league alumni

Many players from the OTM league have gone on to excel in high school and college in basketball and other sports.


Charles Gordon of Vestavia -- Spring Hill (basketball) Charlie Higginbotham of Mountain Brook -- Alabama (football) Jack Kline Mountain Brook -- UAH (basketball) Jordan Swing of Vestavia -- UAB (basketball) Charles Hoke of Briarwood -- Alabama (football) Reid Hamilton of Mountain Brook -- Rhodes College (basketball) Bucky McMillan of Mountain Brook -- BSC (basketball) John David Gardner of Homewood -- Wright State (basketball) Hunter Houston of Mountain Brook -- VMI (basketball) Tribble Reese of Mountain Brook -- Clemson (football) David Dudchock of Oak Mountain -- Stanford and Vanderbilt (football) Wilson Love of Mountain Brook -- Alabama (football) Jay Weinacker of Mountain Brook -- NC State (tennis) Smiley Kaufmann of Vestavia -- LSU and PGA (golf) Will Truss of Vestavia -- Presbyterian College (basketball) Patrick Keim of Mountain Brook -- Auburn (basketball) Josh Drum of Spain Park -- Tulane (football)


Jack Goldasich of Homewood – Alabama (golf) Austin Wiley of Spain Park – Auburn and BCL Europe (basketball) Hamp Sisson of Mountain Brook – Furman (football) Paulie Stramaglia of Mountain Brook – Samford (basketball) Holt Bashinsky of Mountain Brook – New York Univ. (basketball) Britton Johnson of Mountain Brook – Alabama (basketball) Gordon Sargent of Mountain Brook – Vanderbilt (golf) Will Shaver of Oak Mountain -- University of North Carolina (basketball) Evan Smith of Oak Mountain -- Northwestern (football) John Colvin of Mountain Brook-- Auburn (football) Henry Boehme of Mountain Brook -- Penn St. (football) Jackson Beatty of Mountain Brook --Samford (football) Hudson Walburn of Vestavia -- Jacksonville State (baseball) Win Miller of Vestavia -- Belmont University (basketball) Evan Smallwood of Spain Park -- Jacksonville State (baseball) Zach Gray of Spain Park -- Lee University (basketball) RJ Hamilton of Hoover -- Vanderbilt (baseball) Samuel Schmitt of Hoover -- Troy University (baseball)


Past Champions