Send the Eastside Eagles to Nationals

Nobody outside our gym believed the Eastside Eagles would win the Michigan state championship. Half our roster learned the pick-and-roll on a court with one good rim. Our "training facility" is a church gym we share with Tuesday bingo. Our head coach is a retired transit mechanic who has missed exactly one practice in nine years, for his own surgery, and he called in plays from the recovery room.

But these fourteen kids — every one of them keeping a B average or better, because that's the deal — played defense like their lives depended on it, and in some ways that's not a metaphor. They won States by six points on a Friday night that the east side will be talking about for twenty years.

Nationals are in Orlando, July 18-24. The invitation is earned; the trip is not free. $18,000 covers the bus charter, six nights of budget lodging, tournament fees, meals, and uniforms that match for the first time in team history. Anything raised beyond goal seeds next season's travel fund and pays for a second assistant coach.

These kids have done everything right. They've earned the right to find out how good they are against the best in the country. Help us get them on the bus — and if you're in Orlando in July, listen for the loudest bench in the building. That'll be us.