FS 3/3_25/9/15

Fountainhead School 3 on 3 Basketball Tournament

 

An Idea was born…

 

FS 3/3 was a student-led initiative by me and 2 of my friends. All three of us are Passionate Basketball Players, so we thought of organising a Basketball Tournament as our CAS Project work. The reason we named it FS 3/3 (3 on 3) is because FS is our school’s name and 3/3 is different format of a Basketball game and is not very well recognised in Surat. The objective was to promote Surat Basketball as a whole. Implicitly one of our aims was also to spread awareness regarding this game, especially in girls category as there are rarely any tournaments which have women playing 3 on 3 tournament.

 

Giving Idea a life…

 

After having a word with our CAS coordinator, we fixed 25th September as the date of our tournament. We came up with different concepts that made our tournament different from other basketball tournament. one of them is the Most Valuable Player Currency. We then designed the tournament logo similar to the one of our school so, the uniformity and standard is maintained. Also, we designed a logo for MVP currency. After doing the budgeting, we ended up with 1000/- INR per person cost. After asking people to participate, we realised the price was too high and to be on the safer side we had to approach the sponsors. In that, we learnt to negotiate and learnt persuasive skills that would pursue them to sponsor our event. And, finally we ended up with 500/- INR per person. I had organised events in past which helped me to organize this tournament with ease. I learnt how to prepare budget for the event, adjust the costs as per affordability, negotiating for the prices to make the total expense minimal etc. We faced minor problems in trusting people for sponsorship and keeping our own ethics of truth in mind, we overcome the problem by letting it go and compensating that cost from other sponsors or the collected fees. All three of us had decided that no matter what, this tournament will happen in the most appropriate, right and the correct manner. We won’t let any cheating happen and make the tournament success by following all the rules and ethics. It was not so difficult rather it was fun handling that department and finding ways to overcome different challenges. I took the responsibility of handling the Organising committee and other preparations that had to be done and the other two of my friends had taken the responsibility of approaching sponsors and making registrations done. Organising is one of my strength which I had identified and used it here. It was very difficult for us to bring registrations. This was the most difficult part throughout the tournament. As the registrations were less, the order for reversible jerseys that we had planned to ordered got postponed. As the jerseys were sponsored, I designed a rough look of the jersey. After the order was placed, we were informed that the vendor did not have manpower and therefore he could only send the jerseys without. Printing was important for us as the jerseys were sponsored. The jerseys arrived 3-4 days late then the expected date. 3 days before the tournament they had arrived and because of its material, when we sent them for print, they could only print one side of the jersey, the other side had the reflected print of the other side. Things were not going right. But, we then let all the negativity aside and overcome that problem by printing on one side only. I designed posters of the tournament and also the banner using Microsoft Publisher. I also learnt some skills which I did not know before. Converting those documents, editing them etc. My art teacher helped me with the banner. Those posters were put up all around the city so people would register. At the end, we ended up with 22 teams. One of the OC members helped me design uniform for the organising committee. Just a week before the tournament, the weather got worse. It rained a lot and new marking on the court seemed impossible. Arrangements on the court also were not something that we could do. Everything got postponed. We had to fix a tentative date after a week for the tournament, being on the safer side. The school workers had a lot of work and therefore they refused to do all the work assigned. All mattered to us was that the tournament to go success. So then the OC and the tournament directors themselves started to work. We learned how the basketball court is painted and marked. We could feel that how hard it is to clean the whole court in the sun and that was when we came to know that the staff worked so hard just to ensure we don’t  face problems. I am happy to take up CAS because it helped me the world through different eyes, interact people, pursue them to participate, know what problems they faced and tried solving them and asking them to participate. Different mentalities of people brought to light which helped me understand people better. Just before the day there were a lot of changes in the plan due to certain circumstances. So, we tried doing Smart work instead of hard work. We swapped responsibilities to make everybody’s work easier. We had teams from different cities that were going to arrive a day day before, so we had to go fetch them from station as well. OC dinner was planned where I instructed my team with all the work they had to do. I had prepared for folders per team which our work not easier but also organized. We tried giving all the possible facilities and luxuries in the minimum amount possible.

 

The day had arrived…

All the hard work from past months and the commitment was all going to reflect.2 teams did not turn up on the day, so we finally ended up with 20 teams. We faced some difficulties on that day as their were some misunderstandings in the date of event with the sponsor who was going to provide us with the breakfast. But then, utilizing our time efficiently, we started off with matches and then served the breakfast a little late than schedule, but we served it on the court itself. So, the teams that did not have matche could take the breakfast. So the rush would be less and the matches would still go on. I had also designed the whole agenda for the day, agenda for both categories. The format was League, so the agenda was also designed according to the group in the categories. There was a team who suspected who had suspected some other team to be over age. All three of us, the tournament directors had decided that I will be the chief referee in boys category and he other two of them will be in the girl’s category. So, the protest had happened in the boys, so I was responsible to resolve the conflict. I tried my best and managed to resolve the conflict keeping all the rules, regulations, ethics and the protest process in mind. We running out of time, the buses had to be postponed, but we managed take out time well and stayed up to our commitments to some extent. We did justice to nearly all the decisions we took throughout the tournament. I had also participated in the game. I played wit my team. In the first two matches, as we did not play from a lot of time, we had difficulties in coordination between all three of us. But, by the last game, we ended up with a fairly good coordination between each other. I earned 3 MVP coins in the matches as well. Though we lost that match, but we played our best. Not only that, the rules of this format is different. We tried meeting up the criteria as well. Finally, the Finals was over. The most valuable player was declared and it was a pleasant end of the tournament. CAS gave me the opportunity to explore a whole new side of the world. I was happy to know that this made me a lot more mature and responsible. I learnt how to cater to different problems. I will use my experience of FS 3/3 for upcoming events I will organise in. We received a lot of positive feedback from people. We also had a feedback banner where people jotted their comments which helped us know what was good and what needed improvement. A quote that I believe in is the quote I will use to conclude this reflection of my Project work.

 

“Basketball is not about bright lights, packed arenas and highlighted reels. It is the way of life. Its the way of life. Basketball the relationship between you and the ball, you and your team mates. If you love the game, nobody can take that from you.” -Jordan  

 

Keeping academic honesty into mind,

Source for the quote- http://quotesjunk.com/basketball-isnt-just-about-the-bright-lights-packed-arenas-and-highlight-reels-basketball-is-a-way-of-life-basketball-is-a-relationship-between-you-and-the-ball-michael-jordan/

Evidence for the event- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L6_XhDrcOs