By Douglas McCulloch
Hometown Weekly Staff
Westwood High senior Davonte Higginbottom hosted a charity basketball tournament to benefit the Westwood Food Pantry last Friday.
With 66 students participating, the Hoops for Hunger basketball tournament raised a total of $402, which will be donated to the Westwood Food Pantry.
For most high school seniors with sports ambitions, they might hope to become the next big sports star. But for Higginbottom, he has set his sights on a more realistic path: sports management.
When Higginbottom, who was also a captain on the Wolverines varsity basketball team this past season, enrolled in Westwood High’s Senior Independent Project Program, he was left with a choice.
The program challenges Westwood High seniors to complete a year-long community service project outside of class for classroom credit. He was tasked with coming up with an idea for his project.
Higginbottom was told during the first meeting of the SIPP class that the easiest way to decide on a project was to figure out his passion and pursue it. It did not take him long to figure out his passion: basketball.
He soon enrolled in a shadow program with the Boston Celtics. He shadowed interns and learned the inner workings of a professional sports franchise. Working closely with Bill Reissfelder, Senior Vice President and CFO of the Celtics, he learned how a professional sports franchise is both run and managed.
After he finished the shadow program, he was ready to embark on the next stage of his project: completing a community service project. He soon decided to host a basketball tournament, with proceeds from the tournament going to a local charitable cause.
“I was able to gain the knowledge to run this type of event through [the shadowing program],” Higginbottom said.
As he was busy setting up and running the event, he would not be playing in the tournament, but noted he was simply excited to get the event going and seeing his classmates have a good time.
“I looked forward to seeing everyone having fun for a good cause,” Higginbottom said just before the tournament began.
Higginbottom worked with the Celtics and Reissfelder to offer Celtics tickets as the prize awarded to the winning team. He also worked with a number of local businesses to offer donated food and drinks at the event.
Although Higginbottom did not play in the tournament, he stood on the sidelines to make sure the tournament went off without a hitch, from keeping track of the score to attracting participants and audience members to raffles and food that was for sale.
“I got to see the business side [of the tournament],” Higginbottom said.
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