ASHEVILLE— Recently a “Coaches vs. Cancer” basketball event was held, for both men’s and women’s teams, and the game officials got involved with the cause as well.

        Dan Breneman, regional supervisor of officials for the Western North Carolina Basketball Officials Association, assigned the officials for the eight games in this event, including five men’s games and three women’s games. The officials all agreed to donate their game fees to the effort to raise money to fight cancer, resulting in a $2,100 gift from the officials. Dan noted, “The officials assigned to this event were all ecstatic about their gift, as was I.”

        NCHSAA member schools who were playing in the event included Kinston, Mount Tabor, Wilmington Hoggard, Smoky Mountain, Davie County, Enka, Olympic, East Rutherford, McDowell, and Weddington.

        The games were held on campus at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, in Kimmel Arena and in Justice Center.

Bryan Carver of Enka High School, who helped to organize the event with Greg Grantham for the North Carolina Basketball Coaches Association, said, “It was really an outstanding event, and we were very excited to put it on and very proud of the schools and the officials who helped to raise money, We are excited to see where this event can get to in the future, and we want to grow it to one of the biggest in the country.”

Approximately 400 people attended the pre-event banquet, where each school had a chance to speak about the “hero” in whose honor they were dedicating their fund raising efforts to. “That really seemed to personalize it and was very special for everybody there,” said Carver.

Neill McGeachy, athletic director at Lenoir-Rhyne University in Hickory, was the speaker at the banquet.

Each participating school presented a check at the banquet for monies they had raised back in their home communities prior to the event. The participating schools collected over $24,000 before the first game was ever played. Mission Hospital of Asheville was the primary sponsor of the event.

The NCBCA is extremely grateful to UNC-Asheville, Mission Hospital and all the other sponsors, as well as to the many volunteers for making this a terrific event.