I am writing to the editor to express my extreme disappointment and frustration to this year’s Juneau Lions Club Gold Medal (GM) Selection Committee members regarding the issue of unfair treatment to my Gold Medal basketball team Filipino Community (Filcom).
I have been representing the Filipino Community Basketball team for over 10 years, a member of numerous second- and third-place teams, and last year’s 2023 championship team. However, the opportunity to defend our title this year is now gone as this year’s GM selection committee has decided not to invite my team back to defend our title. It was always my understanding that the defending champions always have the right to defend their title the following year. Unfortunately, I guess that does not apply to my team.
I did contact the GM co-chairperson to provide me with an explanation for why my team was not selected for this year’s tournament and why we cannot defend our “C Bracket” title. The response that I received was “It’s because your team was just a fill-in team last year.” This is a false statement as we received our official invitation months before the start of the tournament last year. It is my understanding that the definition of a “fill-in team” is considered a last-minute replacement with only a few weeks/days’ notice to assemble a team because other teams may have backed out. However, this was clearly not the case last year.
Also what bothers me about this year’s tournament is last year’s C Bracket consisted of six teams and this year it’s seven teams, adding one more team to the bracket. Adding another team brings more competition, however, GM still did not include the defending champions.
To GM committee members, a reminder that in any basketball tournament the defending champions always have the right to defend their title. That is just basic tournament rule 101. However, I feel that this year’s GM selection committee members picked and chose who they wanted in the tournament. My advice to GM selection committee members is to please stop playing politics in sports competitions because GM players just want to play and compete against each other at the highest level, and fans just wants to see elite players playing an elite tournament.
Although I am a representative of the Filcom basketball team, I want to make it clear that the Filipino community did not sanction nor approve of this complaint to the Juneau Lions Club Gold Medal. This is just from my point of view and reflects my personal frustration with the Gold Medal Basketball Tournament.
• Mike Lim is a Juneau resident and basketball player/coach.
