HOOPS FOR HEALING Basketball Tournament was originally started in 2001 by Doug Smith then the Athletic Director at Woodstock HS and Tom Gillhouse, the Athletic Director at Belvidere HS.  Their main purpose was to raise awareness and funds for cancer research.

Doug Smith then brought this idea when he moved to Naperville North and teamed up with Craig Watson the Athletic Director at Oswego to do the same thing in 2005.  In their first year the tournament raised over $6,000 for cancer research at Edward Cancer Center in Naperville.  They expanded the tournament by including not only the Varsity but a sophomore tournament as well. Funds raised from the Hoops for Healing tournament hosted by Naperville-North and Oswego go now to support Camp Hope – Year 13.  To date this tournament has raised over $275,000. Both tournaments have raised over $375,000 for cancer in one way or another.

Camp Hope is a unique support program at the Edward Cancer Center. It helps kids who have a parent or grandparent undergoing cancer treatment to get to know other children who are undergoing similar experiences.  Better still, it gives them a chance to be kids with other kids in the midst of the difficulties going on at home.

Camp Hope offers two one-week sessions every summer for children ages five through twelve. In a day-camp format, kids enjoy all the traditional games, swimming, crafts and activities of a good old-fashioned summer camp. They also participate in therapeutic activities, such as gardening, yoga, martial arts and drumming circles under the supervision of clinical social workers who are there to help them work through the emotional issues of having a loved one with cancer. As of this date, the Hoops for Healing Tournament has sponsored over 500 children to attend Camp Hope.

Yearly, Edward Cancer Center brings in cancer survivors to speak to the teams about their personal fight with cancer and what a tournament like this means to them and others going through the same battle.  All teams wear the same shooting shirts and coaches wear the Hoops for Healing pin to show the main purpose of this tournament is raising funds to fight cancer.  This has turned out to be a great community service project for our athletes to be able to use their athletic abilities to fight this dreadful disease.

We hope you will join us and become a sponsor of this tournament.  All sponsorship money goes directly to sponsor CAMP HOPE.

Darren Howard – AD – Oswego HS              Doug Smith – Tournament Co-Founder            Bob Quinn – AD – Naperville North HS