During February 18-20 Collegedale Academy held its annual MLK, Jr. weekend basketball tournament. Around 15 teams from different Adventist schools participated in the tournament. This tournament is named MLK, because it is hosted on an important holiday, Martin Luther King Day. The MLK tournament was started in 2009 by the CAYA program but years down the road it would transition to becoming the MLK tournament. This tournament helps fundraise for our basketball teams to go to the tournament up at Andrews University.
The tournament is made possible by different people, a few of them being Coach Pardo, Ellie Hocking, and Autumn White. There are two divisions during this tournament, division one and division two, which separate the higher seed and lower seed teams. Furthermore, teams from other Adventist schools would stay in hotels or with family members that live around the school. Each of CA’s three gyms were in use during the tournament. For organization purposes, there are brackets posted beforehand, so all the information on where the teams go or play can run smoothly.
Although in the end MLK ran smoothly, there were a few hiccups, such as a team dropping out at the last minute. CA had to figure out how to get a team here in time to fill their spot, but luckily our JV girls were able to join in.
Even though the CA girls didn’t win, they played their hardest. Coach White, the head coach for CA’s varsity girls, talks about how our CA varsity girls had played. “The tournament was a success, although the CA girls varsity didn’t win, we felt like we competed. In my opinion, the best team to win was Oakwood.” Sophomore Gisele Garza talks about how she enjoyed the tournament “My favorite part was being able to see some friends from other schools!” For the boys’ teams Andrews placed first, and our Collegedale Academy JV team.
Coach Pardo is Collegedale Academy’s athletic director and says he and his volunteers are always trying to make the tournament better. “There’s always things we can work on to make our tournament better and we are going to continue to do that. My Volunteers are going to sit with me and talk about how we improve this tournament. We are also going to talk to the other coaches and ask them to fill out a survey on what areas of growth we need to improve on.” Pardo also talks about how he appreciates the volunteers, and what the MLK tournament is all about. “I appreciate all the people that help and volunteer. My favorite moment is seeing players come and make friendships through the tournament even when some teams are going to win and some teams will lose; but this tournament is beyond that, it’s about making friendships and memories.”
