The Cornerstone University alumni league dominated the court 107-98 during an exhibition game against the Golden Eagles men’s basketball team Saturday, Oct. 25.

The exhibition game is the first game of the season for the Golden Eagles and each year the team competes against a group of alumni.

With 11 of the best players from the league racing down the court and showing as much athleticism and agility as their younger competitors, spectators wouldn’t recognize that the team’s most remarkable quality is that they don’t practice.

“[Players] just show up and play,” said Lance Roark, men’s assistant basketball coach and creator of the league. 

Since team members have full-time jobs, wives, children and other responsibilities, there isn’t any time set aside for team practice, so they have to find their own time. Plus, some of the members—whose ages range from 30s to 50s—wouldn’t last very long in practice and could develop injuries.

“We’re too old to practice,” Roark said. “If we just practiced, there would be nobody left.”

The league was created in 2006 after Roark and other alumni realized each year many former players remained in Grand Rapids after graduation and paid membership fees to continue playing basketball in local leagues.

As the alumni numbers grew, former players realized they could stop paying money for other leagues and branch out on their own.

“Hey, we can pull this off,” Roark said was the agreement among the players. “We can start our own league.”

The league consists of four teams: Team Tilma, Team Olmstead, Team Buddy, and Team Roark, with nine players on each. Team Tilma wears white shirts and is led by Brad Tilma, 1999 graduate. Team Olmstead wears yellow and is led by Jake Olmstead. Team Buddy wears green and is lead by Zak Kwiatkowski. Team Roark wears orange.

There are fall and spring leagues with six weeks of playing time and one week of playoffs. Two games are played each week at CU and each team competes against each other twice until the final week. During playoffs, the team with the best record plays against the team with the weakest record and the middle two teams compete against each other.

“Whoever survives plays in the championship game,” Roark said.

Then, according to Roark, recently Team Tilma just won the championship 74-64 against Team Roark on Oct. 2, and Roark created a virtual trophy for the team.

“Guys would rather play for bragging rights than a trophy,” Roark said.

Tilma said that nothing special was done for the championship game. Team members–Bryan Edwards, Steve Thomas, Chris Telman, Kelvin Shuneson, Aaron Alsgaard, Jared Crandell, Jeff Dunn, and Darren Tanis— just showed up and played.

Even though the team doesn’t practice together, each person finds his own time to shoot some hoops.

Tilma plays basketball two to three times a week during lunch or before work and lifts weights.

“It’s like a drug for me,” he said about basketball. “It’s my getaway.”

 During the winter, when the fall season is over, players get together at 7 a.m. and to do a pick-up game with sometimes more than 20 people participating.

“[We] just come to play,” he said. “Kick around, run around and get some exercise.”

“It’s fun to be competitive,” said Tilma, who was a member of the winning 1999 National Association Intercollegiate Athletics Championship team. “You still want to go and prove yourself no matter what age you are.”

The alumni are also prayer sponsors for the men’s basketball team. Each season, an alumnus is paired with a current player as a mentor.

“I think this is a terrific way that coach Roark has kept our alumni connected to our program,” said Kim Elders, head coach of the Golden Eagles men’s basketball team.

Tilma was paired with sophomore and accounting major Dominic Allen, a point guard on the team. They text message each other often and have gone out to lunch.

“I like having someone like that to talk to,” Allen said. He said the subjects they talk about range “from basketball, to school, to relationship with God, to everything.”

“It’s a great program,” Tilma said. “It’s important for young kids to have a mentor.”

Roark said it’s important to keep the alumni connected to CU and to invest in spiritual relationships.

“The only thing that matters are spiritual relationships,” he said, “[because] that has lasting value.”