CIAA Tournament

We spent last Thursday through Sunday in Charlotte for the CIAA "Rock the Rim" men's and women's basketball tournament, a conference which is made up of Division II HBCU schools (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) along the East coast. It was so entertaining - (and tiresome)! We didn't leave the arena until after midnight almost every night!


My thought the entire weekend was: "Basketball is always basketball. Cheerleading is NOT always cheerleading." These girls stomped and danced in ways that were unbelievable. Molly - I'd like to see the Morton cheerleaders performing with this kind of energy next year :)





The cheerleading competition on Saturday morning was quite entertaining as well. Each squad had a themed performance with props set to various pieces of music. Themes included Tarzan, car mechanics, space, and the political/President Obama tribute.

The bands were amazing and had their own amount of organized dancing in the stands during their performances as well. They definitely had a battle of the bands going on all weekend long.

One of the traditions of the tournament is Mr. CIAA, this elderly gentleman who changes into an extraordinary outfit complete with matching hat, coat, shoes, and umbrella every half hour. I didn't get pictures of him every time, but these were some of the ones that I managed to capture.

There was also a Ms. CIAA pageant - one girl selected from each school competed in interviews, essays, and online voting apparently.

And, there were lots of entertainment acts at both the games and the Ford Fan Experience at the nearby Convention Center. My favorite was definitely the trampoline dunkers (although I did grow weary of them the sixth time I saw their routine...). Among others, some of the musical acts included: Yolanda Adams, some former American Idol contestant (sorry AI fans, I don't remember her name...) Robin Thicke, and ---- Nelly! We were totally bummed that he didn't perform at 3:00 like they announced he would (we're guessing due to plane delays), so I only got the picture from the jumbotron since we had to get back to the arena for the championship games.

Chris was excited that he got to see Oak Hill Academy (the #2 ranked HIGH SCHOOL team in the country) play Charlotte Christian on Saturday morning as well. Their team is unreal. Apparently all sorts of basketball greats go to this private institution to get recognized for college opportunities.

The most unfortunate part of the weekend was that the hotel they put us in was a good 20 minutes away. So, instead of getting to stay in the downtown, convenient hotels, we had to be in another town (We decided this was probably because the refs and the medical staff were put up in the same place and maybe it was safer if they were all in an impartial setting). And so, this was really all we saw of the city of Charlotte. But Uptown is definitely a cool area... I think we'll be heading back for a weekend out sometime before we leave.