Coming Closer and Closer Towards Copa Columbus

Arrangements for this year’s High School Copa Columbus are being done to be fully prepared in the best way for the tournament coming up in April.

Schedules, participating teams, courts, fields, and purchases are being organized at TCS by Freddie Badillo, the Athletic Council, and Claudia Valencia. The tournament which will be held on April 4-6th will be needing referees, food, trophies, and more.

“Many requests are made to the purchasing department, for medals and trophies, transportation for external coaches and more,” says Claudia Valencia, Athletic office secretary and assistant. “The calendar of the activities of the event (the games) is organized by the director (Freddie Badillo) and the coaches from each sport.”

Facilities have also changed to have a much better tournament than before. This organization will allow more suitable places to be offered for the tournament such as higher ceilings for volleyball and coliseum courts for basketball. The school also wants there to be as much support for the teams as possible so the game schedule is being organized to make that happen.

“We are going to try and do the best we can  so students as well as players are able to watch the other teams; is not always possible to support every team as you will be playing so many games in the same day,” mentions Freddie Badillo, TCS athletic director. “One day you will be able to see everything since you will not be playing.”

An efficient schedule for the games is being prepared in the best way possible to have a successful tournament. Each sport will have eight teams participating so there will be a lot of games going on which will have to be organized throughout the three days.

“Starting at eight o’clock the games will be played either on Wednesday or Thursday,” says Badillo. “Then the top 2 teams from each group qualify for Friday semifinals and finals, this will be the same for all the sports.”

Usually Copa was held during similar dates as other school events like Cultural Week or COSMUN (Columbus School Model United Nations), which was just held on March 7-10th. This year it was decided for them to be held on different dates for the majority of students to go support the school teams.

“We just felt like it was better to separate both COSMUN and Copa, first because of the facilities and because it is just crazy [with so much people],” comments Badillo.

To have a better range of competition, for the past three years SACS schools (Southern Association of Colleges and Schools) have been invited. Badillo has contacted the ones who participate in Binationals to invite them to the tournament. Not all of them are guaranteed to come but the level of competition would surely be risen to a much higher level.

“We want to invite schools like FLI (Fundacion Liceo Ingles), Granadino, CNG, and COJOWA,” says Badillo. “They are the best and will rise the level of competition much more.”