valley sports foundation

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SoCalHoops HS All-Star News

Valley Sports Foundation's "Battle Of The Valley"
All Star Game April 27 @ CSUN--(Mar. 13, 2002)

What: Valley Sports Foundation's "Battle of the Valley All Star Game"
When: April 27, 2002
Where: Cal State Northridge, Matadome
Who: Boys HS All Stars, Girls HS All Stars

The Valley Sports Foundation, a non-profit organization which has organized youth leagues and games for more than 30 years in the San Fernando Valley will once again sponsor the "Battle of the Valley" High School All-Star Games on April 27, 2002 at Cal State Northridge. Two games will be featured, a girls all-star game which pits the best seniors from the CIF-Southern Section against the best seniors from the LA City Section's San Fernando Valley region teams, and a boys CIF-SS vs. LA City Section game. The girls game will tip-off at 6:00 p.m. and the boys' contest will tip-off at 8:00 p.m. Players have not yet been finalized, but they are in the works and will be announced soon. They will be selected from among the top players in the San Fernando, Santa Clarita, Simi and Conejo Valley region.

In the meantime, Mike Siam, who has worked tirelessly to help organize this event along with Andre Chevalier, the boys coach at Cleveland HS and Melissa Herlihy, the girls coach at Harvard-Westlake, and several area sportswriters, have announced the selections for the coaches of the two games.

Chosen as the girls' team coaches were Doug Nicol of Burroughs High in Burbank, who will head the Southern Section all-stars while Sylmar's Michelle Chevalier will coach the City Section all-star team. On the boys' side, Greg Hilliard of Harvard-Westlake will coach the Southern Section all-stars, and he'll go head to head with Reseda's Mike Wagner who will coach the City All-Stars.

As Gerry Gittleson noted in today's LA Daily News, "The Battle of the Valley is the region's longest-running all-star basketball event for seniors and has featured more than 30 eventual Division I college players." But just as important as the games, is the work that is done by the Valley Sports Foundation throughout the year and the money that they raise to help local area athletes continue to play and achieve their dreams.

The Valley Sports Foundation was originally founded by Investment Development Services and Mike Siam, a former player at Cleveland HS who also coached there (Bobby Braswell was one of his players, and we all know that Bobby eventually went on himself to coach at Cleveland and is now the head coach at Cal State Northridge.) According to Siam, "Investment Development Services was looking for a non-profit vehicle to raise money to benefit student-athletes, coaches and schools in the of the Greater San Fernando Valley. So we decided to do something to benefit all the area's athletes," Siam told SoCalHoops. "The year-round programming now includes sports leagues, tournaments, clinics, and other opportunities for local young athletes," Siam told us.

In addition to the "Battle of the Valley" the VSF also sponsors a banquet honoring the Valley's finest senior basketball players, their coaches and parents, which will be held a day or two before the scheduled games, this year at Knollwood Country Club in Northridge. "The banquet and the game are a way that we honor the best players and give back something to these players all the enjoyment and success they've brought to our region, " Siam told us. "While we raise money throughout the year, our primary fundraiser is the 'Battle of the Valley' High School All-Star basketball games," Siam told us. "While we've had some major corporate sponsorships over the years, including the LA Times in the recent past, this year we are depending and need everyone to help us raise funds," Siam said. Las year the VSF raised close to $50,000 in contributions from across the community to support student athletes, and this year there are still plenty of sponsorship opportunities for the games. If you're interested, send us an e-mail and we'll put you in touch with the Valley Sports Foundation.