This Saturday afternoon the Van Buren High School basketball program’s are giving back to their community by putting on their pre-season alumni games in conjunction with the student government’s food drive.
The games will be held at 3:00pm, 4:00pm and 5:00pm at the VBHS gym and admission is free with a donation of five canned food items. Athletic Director and boys’ basketball coach Dustin Sullivan said the alumni games are always fun for everyone involved and is glad to have a charitable side to the event.
“Not having football or anything like that, basketball is something that everybody kind of looks forward to,” Sullivan said. “We have such good support that if we can use a night like the alumni game to help other people out in the community, it’s a win-win for everybody.”
All donations made will be passed along to the Family Resource Center located on Sparta Street in Spencer. Sullivan said alumni games are a great opportunity to tie the old in with the new and is just another way to get ready for next week’s opening night.
“It’s a lot of fun for the older guys to come back,” Sullivan said. “The younger kids look forward to playing against the guys that they grew up watching in high school, so it’s a fun experience for them too. But it also gets us some good work in before the season starts.”
The Eagles will open up their season on Tuesday, November 19th and will face off against Oakdale. Sullivan said the town of Spencer has been starving for some high school basketball action and he can tell his players are ready to get started too.
“It’s exciting for the kids,” Sullivan said. “It’s probably a little more anxious excitement for me with the season getting started Tuesday and there being so many unknowns with losing a lot of players.”