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Leadership, maybe one of the most over-used terms in coaching today. Every team needs it, every coach wants it, every player thinks they are a leader. The question is really, how do we teach leadership? How do we model that leadership as coaches? Are we developing leaders for tomorrow or more worried about winning in the moment. The North Carolina Basketball Coaches Association firmly believes that leadership is far deeper than winning a game or even a championship. Leadership is preparing our youth, our players, for a better tomorrow and how to be better, more productive citizens! We promote servant leadership with our coaches and our athletes.
After several years of dipping our toes in the waters with our servant leadership model, we decided to put our name to it and promote it. Along the way, we were partnering with Coaches vs Cancer for some small events and donations across our state. In 2013 we launched an event unlike any other in the country, The NCBCA Coaches vs Cancer Shootout. The event is hosted in the beautiful mountains of Asheville North Carolina. This two-day event has brought high school basketball teams from across our state together for one cause, to help the fight against cancer. To date we have raised over $185,000 for Coaches vs Cancer and The American Cancer Society. Cancer is an opponent that we are familiar with and that has no loyalty. Everyone in their lifetime has been or will be affected by this disease. We hope that by inspiring the current generation to get behind this cause it may eventually lead to a cure.
Each year of the event, we select a large number of schools to participate in this event and invite them to Asheville, North Carolina. We have the teams participate in a formal banquet where they will hear how they can be a part of the team in the fight against cancer. We ask each school participating to engage in some form of fundraising at their school level over the course of the fall sport season and be prepared to make a donation to Coaches vs Cancer on the night of the banquet. Each school is also asked to select a “hero” that is someone from their respective communities that has or is currently battling cancer. We honor those heroes at the banquet and ask the schools to discuss what their hero means to them, the ways that they raised money in their honor, and most importantly, the lessons that have been learned along the way. Its an evening filled with lots of smiles, lot’s of laughs, and not to mention, a lot of tears are shed. The next day, we have the teams come back to play a game vs an opponent that that would not really ever see in any other format. We have used the amazing facilities at UNC-Asheville with the Sherrill Center formally known as Kimmel Arena.
Like most things, Covid wreaked havoc on our event causing a two-year shutdown of the event. After those two years, we decided to relaunch the event and rebrand the event. We have now moved the event to a two-day event where each team plays two games at a local high school in the Asheville area, and we are very proud that the NCBCA Coaches vs Cancer Shootout is now back up and running and as successful as it was pre-pandemic. We are most proud of the impact we have made in the lives of student athletes across our state and the communities that they live in. We would encourage all coaches, state associations at all levels to get in some event or association, be more about the life lessons you can teach your athletes. If you would like more information, please contact coachesvscancer.org or contact your local American Cancer Society.