Published: March 19, 2008 10:41 am         

An invitation says you’re welcome; here it means you’re home

For the past two weeks, no matter where you turned, you could find any number of people visiting from out of town who really didn’t feel like they were visiting at all. They felt as though they belonged here because each time they visit they are made to feel right at home.

Welcome to Cumberland. What’s ours is yours. What’s yours is the warm spot you will carry with you in your heart from being our guests.

I see it every year at the Alhambra Catholic Invitational Tournament. When our guests arrive on Wednesday, they’re like kids on the last day of school before Christmas vacation. Long-lasting friendships are immediately resumed and the good times roll, continuing late into Saturday evening and through the wee hours of Sunday morning.

I see it every year at the ACIT’s Saturday night send-off bash, and I experience it as well. Everything’s just ducky until about midnight Saturday when the realization begins to sink in that Christmas vacation is almost over and when tomorrow gets here it will be time to pack it all up and go back to school. It’s as the late A. Bartlett Giamatti said of the baseball season ending, “... and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.”

Hate that feeling. Hated it when I was young, hate it even more now since you tend to nourish a deeper appreciation for your long-lasting, long-distance friendships the older you become.

The Sunday after the ACIT leaves you with such a melancholy feeling, but, of course, that’s because for 48 years the ACIT has been built on love and lasting friendships.

For 14 years now, the Bishop Walsh Girls Invitational Tournament has been putting on a pretty darn good basketball show of its own, providing the Cumberland area with the same kind of off-the-charts hoops that the ACIT has given us for so long, and building lasting friendships among its participants and out-of-town guests.

Nationally-ranked Notre Dame Academy, of Middleburg, Va., didn’t disappoint and won the BWGIT again this year. And, as always, the hospitality and the fun were at the highest level as well. The three-point shooting contest, during which two fans attempt a three-pointer so everybody in attendance can go home with a free Jerry’s pizza, featured former Cleveland Browns, Washington Redskins and Baltimore Ravens running back Earnest Byner.

Byner, whose daughter played for the Notre Dame team, didn’t hit his shot, but the crowd didn’t go home pizza-less as Nikki Teasley, a four-time all-ACC player for North Carolina and current member of the WNBA Washington Mystics, nailed her three.

But just as the ACIT is, the BWGIT is about a lot more than having fun. First and foremost, both tournaments are about giving.

Two participants in last year’s BWGIT from the Notre Dame team, Emma DiVito and Tiara Teasley, were not here this year. Emma lost her life in a car accident last March and Tiara suffered severe head trauma as a result of that accident.

Having met and gotten to know the girls briefly at last year’s BWGIT, tournament co-director Bob Boyle was touched by their graciousness and their spirit, and then naturally felt a deep sense of sadness when he received word of the accident. To help keep Emma’s memory alive, Bob saw to it the Emma DiVito Memorial Award was established and presented to the player and the team in the BWGIT field who display the highest degree of sportsmanship through the weekend. Emma’s mother Linda was here for the final night of the BWGIT to make the presentations to Georgetown Visitation and Bishop Walsh’s Tricia Geiger.

Prior to the championship game, a moment of silence was observed for Emma DiVito.

Having been in a coma for several months, Tiara is home now and is undergoing rehabilitation. Her recovery has been very slow, although as you can imagine, the medical bills continue to come in fast. A page in the BWGIT program was devoted to Emma and Tiara and fans in attendance were asked to take part in a fundraiser the BWGIT would be conducting through the course of the weekend to help Tiara’s family meet some of those medical expenses.

Members of the Bishop Walsh Middle School boys basketball team were dispatched into the stands, and in just 10 minutes they returned with $500 in cash. The money was presented to Tiara’s uncle, Mike Teasley, the head coach of the Notre Dame team, who addressed the crowd, thanking them for their generosity.

On successive March weekends, now for the past 14 years, no matter where you turn, you find any number of people visiting from out of town who really don’t feel like they’re visiting at all. They feel as though they belong here because they are made to feel as though they are home.

And they are.

Contact Mike Burke at mburke@times-news.com.