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Posts Tagged ‘events’
New Orleans Saint's, Marques Colston at Pelle Pelle
Wednesday, February 10th, 2010
New Orleans Saint’s, Marques Colston came by the Pelle Pelle Showroom to pay us a visit. Congrats to Marques and the New Orleans Saint’s on their Superbowl win. We got some shots of Marques wearing his new Pelle Pelle jacket and hanging out with Pelle Pelle’s John Green.
Pelle Pelle Sponsors IZOD High School Hoops Showcase
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010
IZOD High School Hoops Showcase
Focuses On Best Of AAU & Scholastic
The Division I talent on hand at Caldwell College ’s Newman Center on Jan. 24th will be bountiful to say the least, what with players such as St. Anthony’s 6-foot-8 inside force Devon Collier (Oregon State) and St. Benedict’s dynamic 6-2 point guard Myck Kabongo (Texas) on hand along with many others in an attractive 4-game menu, including the best of both boys and girls hoops. However, it’s the merging of the best intentions tied in with the almost-never-mentioned-but-all-important educational side of the sometimes-frowned-upon AAU basketball circuit, combined with an appreciation of the attractiveness of first-rate wintertime high school hoops, which will make the first Izod High School Showcase one of the more appealing days on the 2009-2010 scholastic hoops calendar.
The wide-ranging array of personalities on hand Sunday late January will include Team Izod’s own legendary Darryl Dawkins, a head coach with the three-year-old Fairfield-based AAU team and, of course, a retired NBA star who is also a world-wide ambassador of basketball, plus outstanding high school coaches, such as the noted father-son combination of St. Anthony’s Bob Hurley and St. Benedict’s Danny Hurley.
It all starts with a first-rate girls basketball contest at noon featuring traditional shore power St. John Vianney against Immaculata of Somerville followed by the first of three boys’ contests beginning at 2 p.m. with Long Branch vs. the Grey Bees of St. Benedict’s High School. Then, at 4 p.m., noted coach Joe Mantegna’s Blair Academy squad, which has produced the likes of NBA players Luol Deng (Chicago Bulls), Charlie Villanueva (Detroit Pistons) and Royal Ivey (Philadelphia 76ers), will meet NIA Prep of Newark, an up-and-coming national program with top-notch high school post-graduates, including 2009 All-Essex performers Devon Gibson (University High) and Rameel Johnson (Science Park), along with Montclair resident Shaquille Thomas, the nephew of NBA player Tim Thomas. “It’s a terrific field of high school teams, players and coaches, and Izod’s first annual High School Basketball Showcase is shaping up as a historic day in the continuing, and growing evolution of Team Izod’s basketball leadership program,” said Ed Bright, Team Izod/Sports University’s president and general manager. “The reason for the showcase is to promote the ideals of our academic commitment to our student athletes and establish ourselves as more than just an elite athletic program.
“We are proud that a staple of everything we do is our Educational Enrichment Program.” AAU and high school hoops coming together as one, and promoting academics?…That seems a long way from the old-time cliché of an AAU program simply pulling kids together in a hot gym during the spring and summer, rolling out the balls, and running up and down the court night after night in a pre-conceived notion of hoops-first and “slam, jam, thank you mam,” and it’s all-hoops, all the time, and the heck with the classroom stuff.
But, the message that people such as Bright, Dawkins and the other good folks at Izod and PVH Corporation are trying to send out there on Jan. 24th and well beyond is that this NCAA Division II Community Engagement Event is indeed more about just presenting four outstanding high school basketball games that afternoon and then moving on to the next thing, whether it’s simply the following morning’s practice session or the next game coming up that Monday or Tuesday to follow.
“We are fortunate at Team Izod to have some of the top basketball talent in America in our program, but our program is only a success if our athletes are successful students and human beings first,” said Bright. “Being able to play basketball does not guarantee success. With that in mind, Team Izod has initiated an Educational Enrichment Program, which we started this fall, designed to assist our student-athletes in accelerating their academic growth.”
As part of the program, there will be tutors for students who need assistance in just one or in multiple courses. There will be a full array of subject areas available, and at various levels, from basic skills through advanced placement.
Standardized test preparation, in order to help students better prepare for taking tests such as the PSAT’s and SAT’s, will be part of the program with seminars set to begin in February, 2010.
“The message we’re trying to send home during the Izod High School Showcase is that the overall development of the student-athlete is essential, and we feel we have assembled a group of teams from schools with top-notch coaches, who full understand and appreciate what we’re trying to do, and we feel this as unique an approach to education that any AAU team has ever attempted to accomplish,” said Bright. “There can be a true, positive merging of the two worlds of AAU and high school basketball, if the message is about education and basketball working together as one, not as separate entities that don’t overlap.
