Number of Participants: 14
Hours Donated: 1.5
Value of Time Served: $177
Event Type: Children & Youth
Sport: Girls Basketball
Date: January 23, 2022
Location:
Hopkinton High School
Hayden Rowe Street, Hopkinton
MA
About:
Mary Korbey was a hugely influential figure in Hopkinton Basketball. She was a varsity player here before graduating in 1983 and then she went on to become a scholarship player at UMass Amherst. After college, Mary returned to Hopkinton where she coached and raised her family. She was actively involved in coaching youth basketball in Hopkinton, she was a board member of the Hopkinton Basketball Association, and coached at a number of summer camps. I was fortunate to teach all three of her children in class and I was lucky enough to coach two of them as high school players. Unfortunately, Mary lost her battle with breast cancer in the summer of 2015, just before her daughter, Calli, entered her sophomore year. Calli went on to play for me for the next three seasons as a member of the girls varsity team, and we dedicated our 2015-16 season in Mary’s memory. Mary had coached Calli and many of her teammates for years in youth basketball and the influence Mary had on those girls was evident in the way they carried themselves and approached the game of basketball. Furthermore, the groups of girls we had those years were extremely close and very much became like a second family.
In 2018, the Mary Korbey Scholarship was founded in her memory. The scholarship is awarded every year to a Hopkinton student athlete attending UMass, with preference given to athletes in the Hopkinton girls basketball program.
Last year, during the 2020-21 season, we tried to start an annual winter tournament over the December break to raise money for the scholarship, but we were forced to cancel because of the Covid pandemic. We again tried to host the tournament as a fundraiser this year, but were again forced to cancel when our own program was sidelined with Covid-19. So, with the help of the Korbey family, we used yesterday’s home game against Holliston to raise money for the Mary Korbey Scholarship fund. We helped the Korbey family sell 50/50 raffle tickets, set up a donation table, give out t-shirts (which had already been ordered for the canceled tournament), and sell concessions to raise funds. We were thrilled with the community turnout. We had several youth teams attend the game and had a number of past Hopkinton High School Alumni, including many of Calli’s high school teammates and their families. We hope to get the annual tournament up and running for good next year. I don’t know how much the family ended up raising in total, but I know it far exceeded their expectations and they were touched by the generosity from the community.