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DECA organizes Hoops and Scoops to fundraise for MDA
Teacher Matthew Harley prepares to shoot the basketball into the hoop during the freshmen versus faculty quarter. The faculty won 22-8.
November 18, 2015
Students and faculty gathered at the gym today during long lunch to watch the student versus faculty basketball game, dubbed Hoops and Scoops, which was organized by DECA to raise money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA).
During the game, spectators could eat vanilla ice cream along with multiple toppings, selling for five dollars per scoop in the Quad. DECA will give all proceeds from the sale to the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA), which they have done for several years.
DECA Vice President of Public Relations Logan Drazovich (12) explained what MDA does for individuals with muscular dystrophy diseases.
“I think that it’s a great organization,” Logan said. “They’re able to do a lot with both providing research to muscle dystrophy as well as sending people with muscle dystrophy diseases to summer camp and [providing] them [with] a pretty cool experience that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to get.”
Juston Glass, DECA’s advisor, stated the purpose of organizing this event.
“We’re doing it to help MDA, [to] gain awareness about the disease and help students have an opportunity to have fun and give back at the same time,” he said. “We don’t care who wins. The students aren’t going to win; the faculty aren’t going to win. MDA is going to win and that’s who we hope the real winner is going to be.”
Freshmen Andrew Chang, Neil Tipirneni and Shafieen Ibrahim played against the faculty in the first quarter and lost with a score of 22-8. The faculty team consisted of Matthew Harley, Garret Jones, Julie Wheeler, Juston Glass and Damon Halback.
Sophomores Jin Kim, Nate Kelly, Shreyas Chandrashekaran, Derek Kuo, Neil Bai, Alex Wang, Jacob Ohana and Mishu Nitulescu played against the faculty in the second quarter. Students lost again with a score of 39-23.
Kristin LeBlanc (10) told the reason she came to watch the game.
“I’m here because I want to watch the game, and I don’t want to see the faculty beat the kids even though I know they probably will,” Kristin said. “Charity is always a good thing because we’re very fortunate here.”
During halftime, Chris Hailey (11) and Neil Ramaswamy (9) rapped a song despite technical difficulties later on as the soundtrack would not play.
Juniors Ezra Bekele, Shasvat Jawahar, Andrew Gu, Alex Youn, Alex Mo, Ray Song, Rahul Shukla, Lindsey Trinh, Jonathan Liu, Taylor Iantosca and Srivatsav Pyda signed up to play against the faculty in the third quarter. Faculty beat students with a score of 50-36.
Alex Youn stated why he decided to play on the team.
“I think Hoops and Scoops is a great opportunity for the students and the faculty to get together and play competitively against each other,” Alex said. “Those opportunities are very rare, so I try to seize the opportunity, and it was really fun.”
In the final quarter, seniors Logan Drazovich, Darius Yohannan, Ronak Baldua, John Jerney, Jonathan Hochberg, David Jin, Jonathan Dai, Kevin Kim, Shilpa Repakula, Edward Sheu and Raghav Jain participated in the game. The final score was 62-44; faculty won.
Senior Shannon Hong, Executive Vice President of Silicon Valley DECA, watched the game and talked about why she enjoys Hoops and Scoops.
“I love that it brings the school united together for something that’s a great cause, so I really think that’s the epitome of why we do it,” Shannon said. “I think it’s a great idea for DECA to sponsor [MDA] because as a business organization we focus on things like donating to charity [and] looking at how business can have a positive impact on communities.”
DECA will assemble disaster in collaboration with the Red Cross Club this Friday in the Innovation Center.
