Project Leadership’s ICE League Draft Day Is Saturday, February 2nd

Photo from last year's championship tournament. Photo providedPhoto from last year's championship tournament. Photo provided

By: Brenda Morehead—

Muncie, IN—The 2019 season of Project Leadership’s ICE League will officially get underway Saturday February 2nd with a Draft Day for middle school athletes at Muncie Central High School.

The Inner City Educational (ICE) League, in its fifth season, is an innovative initiative that motivates participants to be strong student athletes as they move toward high school and post-secondary educations. The ICE League ties in closely with Project Leadership’s mission to assist local students to and through college. Project Leadership programming, which includes 21st Century Scholar enrollment, places an emphasis on strong student GPA performance.

Project Leadership’s ICE League sets the grade-point-average bar at 2.5 and higher for students who wish to fully participate in the basketball League for 7th- and 8th-grade boys and girls in Muncie Community Schools and Burris Laboratory School.

On Draft Day, the four core ICE League non-profit member organizations — Boys and Girls Club of Muncie, Buley Center, Ross Center and YMCA of Muncie — will select players for their teams. All players in the ICE League are able to participate in the League at no cost to them or their families because of funding provided by community partners in Muncie. Each center will have one girls team and one boys team during the 2019 season.

A partnership with participating schools and permission by students’ parents allows the ICE League to monitor student GPA eligibility before the February draft and progress during the playing season. Students with a:

  • 5 or higher GPA are eligible to play all 4 quarters of each game.
  • 3 to 2.49 GPA are eligible to play 2 quarters of each game.
  • 0 to 2.29 GPA are eligible to play 1 quarter of each game.

Students who are not registered prior to Saturday’s Draft Day may still participate by registering the day of the event at Muncie Central High School.

Details about Draft Day:

  • Girls registration and parent meetings will be from 8:30 to 9 a.m., with draft drills and scrimmage from 9:25 to 10:30 a.m.
  • Boys registration and parent meetings will be from 10:15 to 10:45 a.m., with draft drills and scrimmage from 11:10 a.m. to 12:15 a.m.

The featured speaker at draft day will be Amber Stocks, former head coach and general manager of the WNBA team, Chicago Sky. Stocks will speak at 9:10 a.m. to the girls and at 10:55 a.m. to the boys.

For more information about the ICE League, call Project Leadership at 896-8616 or visit www.iceleague.org.