Club and intramural basketball teams from colleges across the country will descend on Oxford from Feb. 24-26 for a chance to advance to the National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association’s national championship tournament at the second annual Hotty Toddy Hoopfest, hosted by Ole Miss Campus Recreation.
The regional tournament, which is one of eight in the NIRSA Championship Series for basketball, will take place at Turner Center for pool play and South Campus Recreation Center for playoffs. The tournament will have three divisions: Men’s, Women’s and Unified, which is a partnership with College Special Olympics.
Ole Miss hosted the regional for the first time in 2022. Amanda Alpert Jessee, associate director of Campus Recreation-Programs and co-director for the tournament, said that hosting again in 2023 is a testament to the success of last year’s tournament.
“The fact that this is our second year, we do have some returners, and our staff have seen it happen before just means that we can make it that much better,” Alpert Jessee said. “Last year, not everyone knew what tournaments were like and how we could make it unique to Ole Miss. Since we have seen it, we should be able to kick everything up a notch.”
In Hotty Toddy Hoopfest 2022, Mississippi State won the Men’s division and Georgia Tech won the Women’s division. Not enough teams registered last year to have a Unified division.
Both champions will be returning this year. Some other participants will include LSU, Texas A&M, Delta State, Stephen F. Austin, St. Louis, Wisconsin and Middle Georgia State.
Sydney Foster, a player from the Ole Miss women’s club basketball team last year, competed in the tournament. She said that one of her most cherished experiences from playing was competing against teams from across the country and building relationships with them.
“It was so much fun just because all the teams that were brought in were from different areas,” Foster said. “We formed some good friendships, so we could scrimmage. It was a lot of fun bringing a bunch of teams together and having it in our town.”
The Ole Miss women’s club team finished third in the women’s division in 2022, and they will be defending home court once again this year.
Foster is now the coach of that same club team that she played on for Hoopfest last year, and she said that her experiences as a player will help translate to coaching while also giving her a different vantage point of the game.
“Not being out on the floor and being on the sidelines, that is going to be different,” Foster said. “Being able to interact with other coaches and building those relationships is going to be the difference.”
The Unified division was missed last year, so being able to have enough teams for the division this year was a proud moment for the tournament directors. Gabby Sokol, the other co-director of the tournament, said that having the division reflects the diversity and inclusion initiative of Ole Miss Campus Recreation.
“Unified sports provide a space where individuals with and without intellectual disabilities compete together,” Sokol said. “Having a Unified division is as important as hosting a women’s division or a men’s division. Inclusion is an important aspect in sports, and this is one more avenue for individuals to compete.”
Jeremy Obregon, president of Special Olympics Ole Miss, said he was happy to have enough athletes to compete in the Unified division, pulling athletes from both the Oxford and Tupelo chapters of Special Olympics Mississippi to compete against Mississippi State’s Access Program.
“When I started working with the Special Olympics, we had a lot of athletes, but obviously the pandemic dropped our numbers,” Obregon said.
Now in his senior year, Obregon is proud of the team’s rebuilding effort over the past two years.
Two Special Olympics college teams from Ole Miss will compete, and Mississippi State is also bringing three teams from Starkville to compete in the Unified division.
Sokol explained a tournament this size with intermingling of many different institutions and teams involves planning well in advance.
“A lot of the work leading up to the tournament is marketing and spreading the word to recruit teams and solicit sponsorships,” Sokol said. “The weekend is mostly setting the plan into place and ensuring that everything is where they need to be, and, of course, troubleshooting as things come up.”
The tournament offers opportunities for staff members at Ole Miss Campus Recreation to not only show off their abilities but also build relationships for the future. Jessee said that the tournament has done wonders for former staff members to develop managing abilities and begin their careers post-graduation.
“The greatest benefit is the professional development opportunities that our staff get,” Jessee said. “All of our professional staff and graduate assistants are involved in the planning process. Our students that work the event get to meet individuals from other institutions, so networking is huge with this event for not only our staff, but our club teams.”
