Photo by Kyle Parmley.
Homewood hosts the Blalock Tournament each year, a tuneup for the postseason and a chance to honor those diagnosed with cancer.
The Margaret Blalock Tournament serves a dual purpose.
On one hand, it serves as a final tournament setting to prepare for the postseason. On the other, it serves as a chance to honor Blalock for her contributions to women’s athletics, specifically high school volleyball.
“Traditionally, it’s close to the last one before area,” said Homewood High School head coach Carol Chesnutt. “You’re fine tuning, but you don’t want to peak. You want to peak at the playoffs. It’s a good warmup for it, because you’re getting good competition.”
The competitive field is no joke for this year’s Blalock Tournament, hosted at Homewood. Reigning Class 7A champion Mountain Brook and finalist McGill-Toolen are part of the 20-team field, as are Huntsville, Grissom, Vestavia Hills, Spain Park and other quality volleyball teams.
The tournament will be Oct. 7-8. The teams will be split into four pools of five teams each. After pool play concludes about noon Oct. 8, the top two teams in each pool will advance to the championships bracket. The third- and fourth-place teams will move into a silver bracket.
“It’s a very competitive tournament,” Chesnutt said. “But, yet, it has that other side to it. As competitive as we are, everybody really takes a pause for what really matters. It’s not all about just the competition. People have been coming to this competition for years, haven’t missed one. They know that it’s just a little bit different.”
Blalock passed away in 1989 after a battle with cancer at 54. She established the women’s athletic programs at the University of Montevallo and played a pivotal role in the start and the development of high school girls’ sports. While teaching at Montevallo, she enlisted students to help her travel the state and officiate various high school girls’ athletic events.
“She was an advocate,” Chesnutt said. “She got leaders across the state to help form the structure so that [girls’] competition could begin. She worked with state leaders and coaches as well as other leaders and physical education folks at the university.”
After her death, the Blalock Tournament was started and began at Montevallo. It transitioned to Homewood after a few years. Longtime Homewood coach Susan Cook was one of Blalock’s students.
That tradition continues today, as Chesnutt, Homewood’s current coach, serves as the tournament director, and was also one of Blalock’s students.
Many of the teams at the tournament wear pink to bring awareness to breast cancer. The teams are given a moment each year to recognize and remember those who have lost their lives to cancer. The Blalock scholarship is also awarded to a high school senior who has “persevered through adversity.”
“We do a special ceremony on Saturday where we have a big pink ribbon, almost the size of the court,” Chesnutt said. “We invite our teams and fans and anybody that would like to stand in memory or honor someone who fought cancer to come to the floor and do a moment of silence.”
