Tiger NEws

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Hi Everyone,

I want to thank all of you for your dedication to the Tigers Tournament over the years. Your contribution to the club cannot be overstated as our tournament has always been our primary fundraiser. Not having the tournament last year was the first time for us not hosting one in 45 years. I still remember that painful meeting last March when we decided to pull the plug on it and looking back now, we had no idea what was in store for us all. For 2021, we pretty much knew what the decision would be long ago. And once again I have to let you all know that we are officially cancelling our tournament. Even if the vaccine rollout had been more successful, it would have been highly unlikely that we would be in any position to secure gyms and the Board has decided that the best course of action would be to forgo the 2021 tournament and look forward to the possibility of hosting one in 2022.

Pretty much every league and tournament that our teams would normally compete in during the spring has already been officially cancelled. Since ours is a little bit later than most, we thought we’d wait and see if schools would reopen and what was happening with high school sports before we made our decision. And of course, the news was not good which forced us to cancel. 

But I do have a lot of hope that things will start getting back to normal soon and that we can start to plan for a tournament in 2022. The board has decided to still offer scholarships to our seniors this year and Kaz and Gerald has already emailed the senior teams to let them know. So once again, thank you all and I really hope to see everyone real soon. Stay safe and take care.

Courtney

2020 Tiger Teams

2nd UCLA Nikkei Appreciation Day Game

Hello everyone!

I'm very happy to announce that the UCLA women's basketball team will be hosting its 2nd Nikkei Youth Basketball Appreciation Game this year! They were so impressed and appreciative of our community's turnout last year and are very excited to welcome us back for another game. This year's game will be on Sunday, December 16th at 2pm at Pauley Pavilion. The UCLA women's team, who are coming off an Elite Eight finish in the NCAA tournament last season, will be playing against Oklahoma State University of the Big 12 Conference. 

In honor of the Nikkei Youth Basketball Appreciation game, the team has offered to give our group many special perks, just for our teams. ALL tickets, for the players, coaches, friends and family members, will be FREE, compliments of the women's team. In addition, teams that sign up to attend this event will get to:

1. Attend a pregame talk with one of the UCLA women's coaches (more information can be found on the Nikkei Appreciation web page)

2. Be a part of the high-five tunnel for the women's team as they run onto the court (please let me know if your team is interested)

3. Shoot a free-throw on the court after the game concludes (please let me know if your team is interested)

This is open to boys and girls teams of ALL ages (K-12), from all organizations. All of the extra perks are for a limited amount of players, so sign up quickly! Teams who would like to take advantage of this opportunity will get more information after signing up.

You can sign you team up for this special event here: www.uclabruins.com/NikkeiAppreciation. 

As I mentioned earlier, the team loved having us fill Pauley last year and it would be great if we could get another big turn out! If you have any questions, please contact the women's basketball Director of Marketing, Dana Mayeron (dmayeron@athletics.ucla.edu). Thank you for your support, and Go Bruins!

Allison Taka
UCLA 2010 Alumni
ataka@ucla.edu

An article ABOUT one of our Tigers and JA Basketball

http://www.upworthy.com/the-moving-reason-these-japanese-american-basketball-leagues-have-thousands-of-players?c=ufb1

Tiger Boys at the 2016-2017 CYC Jamboree