Alumni Basketball Tourney Continues to Run
(As In Run the IHS Court)
The IHS Alumni B-ball Tourney has been going on annually in early spring for 35yrs. The 1st tourney took place in 1988. The numbers don’t add up because of a couple yrs off due to the pandemic. The most teams/classes that participated in a particular year was seventeen in one of the years around the turn of the century. That years tourney actually had to run over four days(Thurs-Sun) in order to get all the brackets in. These days we get 8-10 teams participating including a ladies game(one of the most fun games – wish we could get more participants) so all the brackets are completed over a Friday evening and Saturday morning/afternoon.
The tourney was the idea of Tom Chodzin(‘77) back in ‘87. With the help of Mark Spann(‘69) & Mark Suhay(‘75) it premiered in 1988. Many other more recent grads have pitched in over the years after they graduated and vied for bragging rights on the court. The 1st tourney featured grads from ‘65-’87. Nowadays it features grads fr the mid 90’s to the 2020’s.
There is a donation per player of $20 to participate with the net proceeds going to the IHS Hall of Fame Committee to help with expenses for their annual luncheon/induction ceremony(the IHS Booster Club has also been a recipient in some past years). The tourney normally nets around $1000 after expenses for refs, and t-shirts or gift cards for the champs. Have to mention that due mostly to Mark Spann’s relentless(Mark was an imposing figure at 6’5”) fundraising through ads in a program and the number of classes/teams particpating at that time, the tourney netted $4000-5000 for a number of years.
If everything stays on track, #36 should happen in early April ‘25. One new idea suggested is to add a 3-on-3 bracket in addition to the full-court action. Could make a lot of sense for the older classes since it can be hard for those alumni to commit to full court 5-on-5 for a variety of reasons(family, health, etc).
It’s been a fun run for a school the size of IHS. In Independence, it has been – if u have it, they will come! Sound sort of familiar?? A tribute to all the IHS alumni who have and still do participate. One last thing – don’t have to have played b-ball at IHS to particpate. It’s an ALUMNI tourney, not an ex-IHS basketball player tourney.
Mark Suhay(‘75) mmsuhay@yahoo.com
