HOW time flies. It seemed only a year ago when we had the first edition of the SunStar Cup and now we are on our seventh edition and it’s going to fall exactly during our anniversary week, Nov. 24 and 25, at the Cebu City Sports Center.
We will still have the usual divisions—Players 7, 9 and 11; Boys 13, 15, 17 and 19; and the Girls 15, 17 and 19. What is new, though, is the Inter-Company/Professionals division for both men and women. After announcing that we were going to have an inter-company division, I got a couple of inquiries, one from a group of teachers and the other from a group of architects.
They can’t really compete under the Inter-Company rules since they don’t belong to the same company, so we are going to tweak that a bit by allowing a team from the same profession to compete.
A few years back, there was some talk of having an inter-professional tournament just for fun, to know which profession is the best. I think aside from the architects, the engineers, lawyers and even doctors can also form a team.
But that never pushed through and remained just that, talk. I hope by allowing the professionals to compete as a team, this will also encourage others to form their own teams. And perhaps, the other organizers can add an Inter-Professional division. There hasn’t been really a new tweak in festivals in Cebu and sometimes, the Inter Company, Inter BPO can get too testy with accusations being hurled.
I hope the team of architects and teachers will push through with their participation this year in our new division, which we are tentatively planning to limit to a maximum of 16 teams.
Of course, the big question I know most are asking, why won’t there still be a men’s and women’s division?
Well, why not? We will stick with the age group divisions since all the other festivals have the men’s and women’s open. Sure they form the bulk of the field in a festival but they also contribute the most, uhm “challenges.”
Just like in previous years, we are going to have a structured registration fee and those who sign up early, pay less. And, of course, since some coaches love to pay early but complete their registration process a week or two later, this year, only coaches who pass the complete documents—lineup plus proof of age—can avail themselves of the early bird registration.
It really pays to prepare early.