On Saturday, a modest 3-on-3 basketball tournament took place at the East Chapel Hill High School gymnasium, and dozens of athletes competed. It was just basketball, nothing earth shaking, but there was a lot going on below the surface.

In the aftermath of the Haitian quake, four young sports enthusiasts in Chapel Hill, with a talent for marketing and a heart for giving, decided to stage the charity basketball event, and the new Hoops 4 Haiti Basketball Tournament pledged all proceeds toward Haitian relief efforts.

Winning the tournament was the team "Make it Reign," which featured alumni from several area institutions, including the University of North Carolina and N.C. State.

"We didn't play bad for a bunch of out-of-shape guys," former UNC junior varsity player Nathan Davis said. "We had a good combination of (inside and outside play)."

Davis teamed with Adam Harris, Bryan Nieman, and Will Thornton to take the tournament crown from among seven competing teams.

Local residents Matt Titus, Stephanie Kurek, Sam Pellerito, and Lyndsi Ostrow organized the event. Pete Pellerito, Sam Pellerito's father, helped with some of the advance marketing and with securing the assistance of East Chapel Hill athletic director Ray Hartsfield.

The funds generated Saturday go directly to the American Red Cross to help supply clean drinking water, distribute shelter needs, and provide emergency health care to survivors of January's devastating earthquake.

Thankful

Stephanie Kurek said the staging was certainly a team effort.

"Sam, Matt, Lyndsi, and I really wanted to do something for the cause, and Matt, who had done sports marketing in his previous job, thought this might be the best way to go," said Kurek, public relations director for ProActive Performance Centers.

"Then we really just got started by throwing up a website and using Facebook," Kurek added. "I coordinated the T-shirts and flyers, I put up the Facebook page, and I contacted some of the news media. The T-shirts are from Harper Arts printing in Carrboro, and they gave us an amazing discount on the shirts."

The organizers also thanked other contributors, including Jersey Mike's, ProActive You, the Red Cross, and Chapel Hill Printing.

"Matt Titus and I were playing tennis one day, and ... we started thinking about starting one of those companies that stages these basketball and lacrosse tournaments," Pellerito said. "I thought we should start one of these tournaments as a successful thing we could build on."

Pellerito, an RTP biotechnology consultant already works with local communities on alternative energy policies and job creation. This matched well with the talents of Titus, a sports management professional who worked as an administrator for USA Baseball.

Easy choices

Basketball was the sport of choice which might draw the biggest interest, the two thought.

"Chapel Hill is just a big time basketball environment," Titus said.

Given that the Haitian quake occurred just over a month ago, the team had to work fast.

This is really the first charity we've been involved in," Kurek said, "but we were all just definitely moved by what had happened in Haiti, so we contacted a few charities to research exactly who to give our money to, and Red Cross had a local chapter."

"I put my two cents in related to places to go to ask for donations, and I helped with the publicity and some of the phrasing," said Ostrow, who works at Chapel Hill's Freedom House Recovery Center and also volunteers as a counselor with a community crisis center.

Kurek said organizers were hoping that the initiative might court thousands of dollars for such a valid cause, but much of revenue was generated off the basketball court.

"I think we're hoping for between $3,000 and $5,000," she said, "because we have a lot of donations as well. We have family and friends that donated -- people who couldn't come and play but wanted help also gave to the cause."

And while much of the value of the initiative may lie slightly beneath the surface, organizers are also hopeful that some of the final donations will reflect interest days beyond the basketball.

Still time

"We don't have to turn in donations until March 15," Titus said. "So, for the next two weeks, people can still go to the web site ( hoops4haiti.net), which has an email address, my cell phone number, and people can just get in touch with me. There are no expenses, so all the checks go straight to the Red Cross."

Donors can send checks (payable to "Hoops 4 Haiti / Red Cross") to 101 Thomas Lane, D4, Carrboro, NC 27510.

Next up for the industrious foursome may be capitalizing on lessons learned.

"I think we could stay involved with charity events," Kurek, "just because we've seen such a great outpouring of responses. I think if we'd had more time to plan we could make these kinds of things a lot bigger. In future events, I'd probably add more of a rivalry aspect to the competition. That usually gets people more willing to come and participate."

Unfortunately, quakes happen, and unpredictably, terribly.

But sometimes the worst news brings about the most unpredictable, unexpected charity, when we tap into our better character ... from just below the surface.