Centennial March Madness a Big Hit for Students and Families

Many prominent sports fans—recently including former Presidential candidate Ralph Nader—lament the state of college athletics, saying the game has lost its amateur luster because of countless recruiting violations, pay-for-play scandals, or even substitute SAT-takers.

Don’t worry fans, because the amateur game is not completely dead. Those who made their way out to Friday night were treated to a fun-filled evening of basketball in its purest form, as fourth and fifth-grade boys and girls competed in the Regional Finals of the annual Centennial March Madness three-on-three tournament.

The Willow Dale girls and the boys emerged victorious from today’s bracket matchups, and will be moving on to the District Finals. According to Woody Martin, a teacher at Willow Dale who is helping coordinate the event, the schools that played today at Willow Dale —Willow Dale, Alta S. Leary, and — are comprised of the west side of Centennial  District. The other two Centennial elementary schools— and also had a regional final of their own (with McDonald-Davis having two teams in both the boys and girls brackets). Those winners will take on the Willow Dale girls and Leary boys at a date yet to be determined.

Martin said the two winning teams of the next week’s matchups will be declared District Champions, and will receive a basketball with the school’s name stylized on it to display for the year.

According to Martin, the Centennial March Madness Tournament began “at least eight years ago,” as an in-house tournament at Davis School (before Davis merged with McDonald to form McDonald-Davis Elementary). The tournament began because of the initiative of Andy Mahoney, a teacher at McDonald-Davis. “This is his brain-child,” Martin said. “He’s the one who started all of this.”

Once officials saw how successful the games were, the tournament grew from there. “Davis got involved with McDonald and they used to have a little playoff between the two teams,” Martin said. “Then they said ‘Hey this is going really well the last couple of years, [and] we want the other schools involved.’” To keep the field of six teams, McDonald-Davis sends two squads to its regional final.

In order to determine the regional final participants, each elementary school holds its own tournament where boys and girls in fourth and fifth grades form their own teams of three and play short five-minute games in a bracket format. The Willow Dale championship game, which was comprised of two five minute halves like all the regional games, was held at an assembly in the Willow Dale gym for all of the students and faculty to watch. Martin said that participation at Willow Dale was the highest ever this year, as the school had “close to 30” boys teams and 15-20 girls teams competing.

There’s no real secret behind the tournament’s success. The main reason its player and spectator numbers are high is that students, parents, and faculty members simply have fun participating. Faculty members who are more familiar with basketball act as referees, while others are score-keepers or even event emcees. Martin said that every year, the students are “very excited” come tournament time.

Martin said another one of the tournament’s strengths is that any student who wants to participate can have that chance. If students can’t find a second or third team member, the organizers work to put together teams of students in similar situations. The Regional Finals have both a winners and losers bracket, so each team gets to play two games. “Anybody who wants to be here and participate, they’re not denied that opportunity,” he said.

According to Martin, virtually all of the students who participate have played organized basketball at some level, so the referees are able to enforce all of the basketball rules like back-court violations and five and ten second violations with which people who just play for fun might be unfamiliar. Martin acknowledged that sometimes the competitiveness may lead to student misbehavior, but today’s contests went by without incident. The crowd even got a hearty chuckle when an eager boys player accidentally scored on the wrong basket off of the opening tip, resulting in a point for his opponents.

Thankfully, there have also been no reports of students wagering lunch money on games or teachers giving A+’s for victories, so fans and observers can sit back and enjoy the game the way it was truly intended to be played: by smiling kids simply having a good time with their friends.