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The University of Wisconsin-Fond du Lac is one of 13 two-year campuses in the state. Our conference (the Wisconsin Collegiate Conference) is divided into two divisions, East and West, and three years ago I decided to have our school host an all-star basketball game that pitted the two divisions against each other. Planning an event like this is a great way for players at the junior college level to have their talents recognized by NCAA coaches, their peers, and fans. You can also turn this event into a fundraiser for your athletic department.

UW-Fond du Lac hosted our East vs. West all-star game the first two years of its existence, and the home site moved to UW-Marathon this past year. It's been a very successful event for all of us involved, and with a little time and planning, you too can plan an event like this for your conference or league. Here are the steps I took to get things started.

Idea Proposal
Plan ahead, and have an outline showing how you would host such an event to share with campus administrators and colleagues alike. Submit your proposal early, so that you have adequate time to plan all of the logistics (volunteers, sponsors, publicity, players, coaches, etc). Pick a date and time (allow for travel time) that works for everyone involved. I picked a Sunday afternoon to reduce the number of potential conflicts for everyone involved.

Secondary Contests
In addition to an actual all-star basketball game, you can include a dunk contest and a three-point shootout, both of which can be conducted prior to the game. These additional contests give players an opportunity to display their individual talents and skills and they're also entertaining for both the spectators and players to watch. We gave awards to the first and second place finishers. For the game itself, we also had the coaches select an MVP from the opposing team.

In our dunk contest, we gave each participant two minutes to make three dunks. We had four judges. Your judges can be comprised of alumni, current students, faculty members, or staff members. Each judge provided a score on a scale of one to 10 (10 being the highest) for each made dunk and we took the best score of the three. The top two players moved on to the final round.

For our three-point contest, each player shot 25 balls--eight on the first two racks and nine on the last rack. The first two racks also each contained one money ball. Baskets made with a regular ball were worth one point and the money balls were worth two, so the top attainable score was 29 points. The shooting sites were: corner, wing, and top of key. Each player had 75 seconds to shoot as many balls as they could. The top four finishers moved on to the final round.

Selection of Players & Coaches
This step is really already done for you. Player participation should be based on all-conference voting, with the five first team honorees as the starters, and the five second-team recipients as the reserves. If any players from the first or second teams are unable to participate, you can dip into the honorable mention pool for replacements. Coaches for each team can be based on conference Coach Of The Year honors.

Uniforms
One option is to have each player wear their respective home or away jersey in team colors. Or, as we did, you can work with local businesses to provide commemorative jerseys specific to your game. We worked out a great deal in which each player received shorts and a personalized jersey for half price. The vendor put their logo above each player's name on the backside of the jerseys for advertising.

Sponsors
Start early! The earlier you and your staff start soliciting sponsors for your event, the more success you will have in obtaining money and product. Start by soliciting sponsors that you already use in your athletic department (T-shirt and uniform vendors, local food establishments, equipment vendors, etc). Our all-star game uniform vendor, for example, donated 200 shirts we could sell at the event, and we sold out prior to tipoff.

Officials & Volunteers
Hire local officials and student workers to staff the event. Once those resources are exhausted, look to volunteers. We had alumni, student workers, staff, and officials that were all affiliated with our campus involved with our event. At the conclusion of the event, make sure to thank everyone for their services, work, good, etc. This will help establish a good rapport for future events.

Invitations
Invite everyone you can, however specifically target coaches from advanced levels who can use the game as a recruiting opportunity. For example, we invited coaches from NCAA four-year institutions to come and observe potential players for their respective programs. In their invitation, we included a free admissions pass. In our first two all-star games, we had 10 coaches attend each one. And we made it so all of our conference coaches and players were able to attend free with a valid faculty or student ID cards.

Advertising
Use your local media (newspaper, television, and radio). Start advertising early and ramp up your efforts as the event date comes closer. This is another way to get your local community involved in the event. We did interviews on the local radio station each year, and got great feedback on the promotion. Also work with your campus public relations person to put together a press release. After our event concluded, we took pictures of the teams, coaches, and individual award winners and sent them to the local media and visiting campuses.

Additional Entertainment
Include various fan contests and entertainment throughout event. For example, we had a local student sing the national anthem and a dance team perform at halftime. We also conducted different shooting contests at halftime that gave fans a chance to win prizes. The more the crowd is involved, the more fun they will have.

Itinerary
Design a program with a timeline so that spectators, coaches, and players know exactly what to expect on the day of the event.

Lee W. Watson is Athletic Director and an Assistant Professor of Physical Education at the University of Wisconsin-Fond du Lac.