Planning for the David Busta Basketball Tournament and Silent Auction has been heating up lately in anticipation of the 4th annual event with a goal of raising money for stem cell research. Set for November 25th in my brother Arik's and my hometown of Chetek, Wisconsin, Aurora has been a sponsor and supporter since the start and we're excited to be participating again this year.

My good friend and high school teammate, David Busta, became quadriplegic after a fall in the summer of 2002, which spurred us to come together with others in Chetek to produce an ongoing annual event for spinal cord injury research. All of the money they raise goes to UW-Madison's Waisman Center and we're expecting to exceed an exciting milestone of $100,000 raised cumulatively following the event in a couple of weeks.

The picture above is of Judy Clark, Eau Claire's (WI) local TV-13 news anchor, myself and David Busta taken at a Nov. 4th interview Judy did with us to help spread the word. While I'm not necessarily excited to play three games of basketball in one day myself on the 25th, I'm thrilled to continue building on the successes we've had in the previous three years, and to try to beat last year's $34,500 total.(read more)