For the next 10 weeks, Virginia men’s basketball beloved coach Tony Bennett will be competing not in basketball – but for a good cause. As one of forty-eight coaches in the NCAA Division 1 Men’s Basketball, Bennett is a participant in this year’s Infiniti Coaches Charity Challenge to raise money for charity. The competition will award $100,000 the winning coach’s charity of choice.
Bennett, well known around the Charlottesville area, hopes to harness his local celebrity to give back to the community. His chosen charity, the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, is a local food bank reaching thousands of people in North-Western Virginia. According to the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank website, 1 in 10 people in the Blue Ridge area struggles with hunger. The $100,000 award would provide the food bank with 400,000 meals.
The online competition has four different three-week rounds of voting lasting until March 12th. At the end of each round, the coaches with the most votes will continue to the next round. Coaches who are eliminated will still receive donations for their charities, but the amount will differ depending on what round they are in.
This is the sixth year of the Coaches’ Charity Challenge tradition. To make sure Bennett wins, the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank encourages daily voting. Bennett’s supporters can vote on the Coaches’ Challenge website after making an account or logging in with Facebook.
