Moments after the loss, members of Team Challenge ALS walked off the court at the Physical Education Complex at Coppin State and into the locker room. The emotions were raw.
The Cinderella run had fallen just short. A No. 6 seed in The Basketball Tournament, Challenge ALS — while raising awareness for the deadly disease — made an inspiring run to the championship game last summer. A close loss in Baltimore to Overseas Elite, who became the tournament’s champion for the third straight year, robbed them of the ultimate ending.
Around the locker room, there were tears. Challenge ALS had put so much into this run as it lifted and inspired an entire community.
“It sucked, honestly,” said Sean Marshall, the team’s general manager and one of its key players. “Being in that moment, how connected we were as a team and how we came together in such a short period of time, to do something so special with that run where nobody expected that, it was tough because you always want a story that good to end the way it should, but sometimes that doesn’t happen.”
Soon, though, those emotions subsided. Marshall recalls Darren Collison, the coach of Challenge ALS, standing up in the locker room.
This wasn’t it for this group, They would be back.
“I remember him standing up saying, ‘We’re gonna be all right, we’ll be back next year and we’re gonna win it, we’ll finish it,’ ” Marshall said.
Another player, Jerry Smith, also got up and said something. Right there in the locker room, the entire team committed to coming back for this summer’s tournament. And they’ll do just that tomorrow, when Challenge ALS, a No. 1 seed in this year’s tournament, looks to begin another run to the $2 million championship prize.
“To get that far and get that close and not be able to finish it off, it kind of hurt, but it also motivated us,” said Challenge ALS guard Larry Gordon.
The Basketball Tournament is an annual summer basketball tournament that has grown in popularity since its inception in 2014. Anyone can apply to enter a team, and the field, which has grown to 72 teams, is made up mostly of former college and NBA players. The award for the winner began at $500,000, and it’s now at $2 million.
In 2016, Marshall, a former Boston College captain, was a member of the team Skinner’s Frate Train, a nod to former BC coach Al Skinner, but more importantly, Pete Frates, the former BC baseball player who was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, in 2012, and has since taken an instrumental role in raising awareness of the disease and funds for research. That team, made up of BC basketball alums, lasted just one year, but Marshall wanted to keep it going.
Marshall, who was roommates with Frates when they were at BC, wanted to create a new team to honor his friend and his fight. So he pitched the idea to Frates’ parents, and they came up with the team name. Marshall then reached out to guys he knew to round up a team, made sure they would be committed to this vision that he had, and they were on their way.
“I explained to the guys who I had in mind that we were going to have a training camp, that we were playing for something that was bigger than basketball,” Marshall said. “I want to say more than half of our team weren’t even aware of what ALS was before we started, so them doing their own personal research and seeing how passionate I was about spreading awareness for my friend, they all jumped on board.”
Losing the championship was difficult, but as Marshall explained, he and his teammates reflected and realized how much of a positive impact they made. While the idea of the team was inspired by Frates and his fight, and wanting to use the platform of the tournament to tell his story and raise awareness of the disease, the team learned as they made their run that they were affecting an entire community. People who were diagnosed or even affected by ALS in some way were reaching out to them, or even coming to the games, and they soon realized the scope of the impact they were making.
So as Marshall was flying back home after last year’s tournament, he tried coming up with ideas of what the team could do differently for this summer’s tournament. And that’s when it popped in his mind — he wanted to honor not just Frates, but others affected by ALS.
Last summer, every player on the team had “Frates” printed on the back of their jerseys above their numbers. This year, Marshall will continue to have “Frates” on his jersey, but each player will have a different name on the back of their jerseys to honor other people and their families who have been diagnosed and affected by ALS. Those people range from personal connections that players on the team already had — including Dick Kelley, a former media relations specialist at BC who died from ALS in 2014 — to those who have reached out and submitted names to the team.
The final name chosen, Eileen Daly, a woman from New York diagnosed with ALS, was among a handful of people picked through a social media drawing to grace the back of a jersey. When Marshall called those families to let them know they had been chosen, it was emotional.
“It was unbelievable. I honestly wish that I would have recorded it,” Marshall said. “They were literally crying as we told them, so they were so honored that they would have the opportunity to have their loved ones’ name on the back of the jersey and have that story told on ESPN. That’s the whole reason behind our team.
“Of course we’re playing in a basketball tournament for $2 million, but just to be able to touch people’s lives within our team, that was the main goal and we’re going to continue to do that.”
If Challenge ALS can win this year’s tournament and the $2 million prize, it will donate $250,000 of the winnings to ALS research, which they also would have done if they won it last year.
After making last year’s run and realizing the influence they made, Marshall said the approach going into this year’s tournament isn’t any different just because they’re a No. 1 seed.
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“Honestly, I think we’re more hungry,” Marshall said. “I think we have more fire, I think we’re more inspired from losing in the finals and learning through the process. The tournament is so intense and I don’t think people understand how high-level a basketball tournament it is once you get down to the Final Four unless you’re in that, so just having that experience of being in the Final Four and then combining that with the fire of losing and being inspired, I think we take the same approach.”
Challenge ALS is playing for something bigger than themselves, too, and a sense of purpose that they think gives them an edge.
“When you have a sense of responsibility to a certain community, it pushes you.It drives you to play with a little bit more emotion than you might if you were just playing for a check, so it’s huge,” Marshall said. “I think guys learned that through the process of playing in the tournament last year, and coming into the tournament from the first game, I think that it’s definitely going to help us
The Cinderella run had fallen just short. A No. 6 seed in The Basketball Tournament, Challenge ALS — while raising awareness for the deadly disease — made an inspiring run to the championship game last summer. A close loss in Baltimore to Overseas Elite, who became the tournament’s champion for the third straight year, robbed them of the ultimate ending.
Around the locker room, there were tears. Challenge ALS had put so much into this run as it lifted and inspired an entire community.
“It sucked, honestly,” said Sean Marshall, the team’s general manager and one of its key players. “Being in that moment, how connected we were as a team and how we came together in such a short period of time, to do something so special with that run where nobody expected that, it was tough because you always want a story that good to end the way it should, but sometimes that doesn’t happen.”
Soon, though, those emotions subsided. Marshall recalls Darren Collison, the coach of Challenge ALS, standing up in the locker room.
This wasn’t it for this group, They would be back.
“I remember him standing up saying, ‘We’re gonna be all right, we’ll be back next year and we’re gonna win it, we’ll finish it,’ ” Marshall said.
Another player, Jerry Smith, also got up and said something. Right there in the locker room, the entire team committed to coming back for this summer’s tournament. And they’ll do just that tomorrow, when Challenge ALS, a No. 1 seed in this year’s tournament, looks to begin another run to the $2 million championship prize.
“To get that far and get that close and not be able to finish it off, it kind of hurt, but it also motivated us,” said Challenge ALS guard Larry Gordon.
The Basketball Tournament is an annual summer basketball tournament that has grown in popularity since its inception in 2014. Anyone can apply to enter a team, and the field, which has grown to 72 teams, is made up mostly of former college and NBA players. The award for the winner began at $500,000, and it’s now at $2 million.
In 2016, Marshall, a former Boston College captain, was a member of the team Skinner’s Frate Train, a nod to former BC coach Al Skinner, but more importantly, Pete Frates, the former BC baseball player who was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, in 2012, and has since taken an instrumental role in raising awareness of the disease and funds for research. That team, made up of BC basketball alums, lasted just one year, but Marshall wanted to keep it going.
Marshall, who was roommates with Frates when they were at BC, wanted to create a new team to honor his friend and his fight. So he pitched the idea to Frates’ parents, and they came up with the team name. Marshall then reached out to guys he knew to round up a team, made sure they would be committed to this vision that he had, and they were on their way.
“I explained to the guys who I had in mind that we were going to have a training camp, that we were playing for something that was bigger than basketball,” Marshall said. “I want to say more than half of our team weren’t even aware of what ALS was before we started, so them doing their own personal research and seeing how passionate I was about spreading awareness for my friend, they all jumped on board.”
Losing the championship was difficult, but as Marshall explained, he and his teammates reflected and realized how much of a positive impact they made. While the idea of the team was inspired by Frates and his fight, and wanting to use the platform of the tournament to tell his story and raise awareness of the disease, the team learned as they made their run that they were affecting an entire community. People who were diagnosed or even affected by ALS in some way were reaching out to them, or even coming to the games, and they soon realized the scope of the impact they were making.
So as Marshall was flying back home after last year’s tournament, he tried coming up with ideas of what the team could do differently for this summer’s tournament. And that’s when it popped in his mind — he wanted to honor not just Frates, but others affected by ALS.
Last summer, every player on the team had “Frates” printed on the back of their jerseys above their numbers. This year, Marshall will continue to have “Frates” on his jersey, but each player will have a different name on the back of their jerseys to honor other people and their families who have been diagnosed and affected by ALS. Those people range from personal connections that players on the team already had — including Dick Kelley, a former media relations specialist at BC who died from ALS in 2014 — to those who have reached out and submitted names to the team.
The final name chosen, Eileen Daly, a woman from New York diagnosed with ALS, was among a handful of people picked through a social media drawing to grace the back of a jersey. When Marshall called those families to let them know they had been chosen, it was emotional.
“It was unbelievable. I honestly wish that I would have recorded it,” Marshall said. “They were literally crying as we told them, so they were so honored that they would have the opportunity to have their loved ones’ name on the back of the jersey and have that story told on ESPN. That’s the whole reason behind our team.
“Of course we’re playing in a basketball tournament for $2 million, but just to be able to touch people’s lives within our team, that was the main goal and we’re going to continue to do that.”
If Challenge ALS can win this year’s tournament and the $2 million prize, it will donate $250,000 of the winnings to ALS research, which they also would have done if they won it last year.
After making last year’s run and realizing the influence they made, Marshall said the approach going into this year’s tournament isn’t any different just because they’re a No. 1 seed.
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“Honestly, I think we’re more hungry,” Marshall said. “I think we have more fire, I think we’re more inspired from losing in the finals and learning through the process. The tournament is so intense and I don’t think people understand how high-level a basketball tournament it is once you get down to the Final Four unless you’re in that, so just having that experience of being in the Final Four and then combining that with the fire of losing and being inspired, I think we take the same approach.”
Challenge ALS is playing for something bigger than themselves, too, and a sense of purpose that they think gives them an edge.
“When you have a sense of responsibility to a certain community, it pushes you.It drives you to play with a little bit more emotion than you might if you were just playing for a check, so it’s huge,” Marshall said. “I think guys learned that through the process of playing in the tournament last year, and coming into the tournament from the first game, I think that it’s definitely going to help us
