Sioux City’s Tyson Events Center is in its 24th year of hosting the NAIA Women’s Basketball National Championship Tournament.
Steve Salem, one of the volunteer coordinators, says those who donate their time make everything possible, though the event has become a lean-running machine through a series of changes.
“We have a committee that does all that. I’m one of the four members of the committee,” Salem says. “We used to have almost 200 volunteers do the basketball tournament. Over the years, the tournament’s evolved. This year, I think we have maybe 50.”
Fewer volunteers are needed because Sioux City now has only the final 16 teams come to town in the single-elimination tournament. In previous years, the entire field of 64 teams was in Sioux City. Salem says there is a lot of tournament experience in his group of four-dozen or so volunteers.
“We’ve got people that have been doing this longer than I have,” he says. “We used to have a volunteer meeting before every tournament and in a lot of cases, we haven’t needed to because the volunteers are so experienced, they know what to do, and that’s a testament of the people of Sioux City.”
Salem says chatting with the fans who come and root for their team is part of the reward for him. “The interaction with not just the volunteers but the attendees at the tournament,” Salem says. “You see people here every single year, and even though they’re in the stands, they recognize you and they start talking to you and it’s always fun.”
The tournament runs through Saturday when the national championship will be decided.
(By Woody Gottburg, KSCJ, Sioux City)