Haley Stevens: “the day before Thanksgiving the University of Alaska's Athletic Department marks a milestone--the 20th anniversary of…”

“the day before Thanksgiving the University of Alaska's Athletic Department marks a milestone--the 20th anniversary of the Great Alaska Shootout. The shootout is a basketball tournament that began as an impossible dream of Bob Rachal, a coach who wanted to put his fledgling University of Alaska Anchorage basketball team on the map. Now, the shootout continues under Charlie Bruns and Tim Dillon, athletic director and has become an annual Thanksgiving tradition for Alaskans and basketball fans across our Nation. In the 20 years since the shootout began, our Nation's greatest college teams have traveled to Alaska over the Thanksgiving break to vie for the tournament trophy. Twenty former NCAA champions have taken part in the shootout over the two decades; last year marked the fifth time the defending national champion has participated in the shootout. The first game, 20 years ago, was played in a drafty field house on Fort Richardson, a military post in Anchorage, to about 2,500 fans. Now, the shootout fills our state-of-the-art Sullivan Sports Arena in Anchorage, and is televised live nationwide via ESPN. Sportswriters from the wire services, newspapers and magazines regularly travel to Anchorage to cover the shootout. Because the teams that participate are the best, the games are invariably closely contested; 60 of the previous 228 games have been won by margins of five points or less.…”