Students & Faculty Face Off in SCCAP Charity Basketball Tournament

Team 2 drives to the hoop against Take Notes. Photo by Elaine Zhang.

Smiling faces and a cheering crowd filled the Malley Center basketball courts on May 1 as the Student vs. Faculty Santa Clara Charity Tournament kicked off. 

Hosted by the Center for Student Involvement, the event promoted faculty and student fun to raise money for the charitable foundation Hoops for Kids. A five-team bracket full of a variety of students and faculty of all skill levels took to the courts. The result? More cheers and laughs than ever.

At the center of this event were Santa Clara Community Action Program education mentoring department coordinators, Veronica Flores ’25 and Shreya Jain ’27. The two coordinators noticed that basketball has been popular in various forms across campus this year. The popularity has been high amongst students playing 5-on-5 intramurals, University staff members playing in their own intramural league and students now playing 3-on-3 hoops. Additionally, the opportunity to give students a chance to match up against their professors was another selling point. 

“We’ve been doing events every day, and we thought basketball would be a great way to get students and faculty involved,” Flores said. “We thought it would be really fun to make it a tournament for charity because of the work our department does with kids.”

Flores and Jain were correct—it didn’t fail to disappoint, and the crowd reflected that. Frequent flutters of cheers would echo through the gym as Jain moved back and forth from court-to-court to inform players of the time remaining in their games.

“It’s a great way for us to have fun and chill out after midterms,” said Kyle Samonte ’25. “I hope we get to play the faculty team so my friend can play his professor.”

The faculty team rose to the occasion as their team, Take Notes, made it all the way to the championship before falling to the undisputed champion, Team 2. 

“Personally, I thought the students got lucky,” said communication professor Andrew Ishak. “We play them again, we beat them.”

Competitiveness aside, Ishak praised the students as hosts, teammates and opponents. “I love events like this, and I honestly wish teams would do this way more often,” he said.

“I hope students know there are a lot of faculty and staff who want to do a lot with them, you know, extracurricular activities, going to their games, going to their performances,” Ishak said. 

SCCAP is still accepting donations from students and staff in support of the Hoops for Kids charity initiative.