The Greek Star

PHOENIX (AP)— Obstacle course runners start on their feet, but eventually end up on their stomachs, sides, even backs at they clamber through mud, over shipping containers, across netting made of mangled ropes. The most mentally strong will choose courses where they have to jump off large platforms into water, run across fire, even crawl through water as live wires zap them from above.

The National Hellenic Invitational Basketball Tournament played April 4-7 at Fenwick High School in Oak Park, Illinois. Nearly 40 teams and 300 players competed in three divisions of men,. women, and boys’ high school, including out-of-town men’s teams from Massachusetts, Denver, Milwaukee, Indiana, Buffalo, and Minneapolis. The tourney also featured a boys’ mini-juniors bracket. There was some great talent on display throughout the weekend as many of these players, in the men’s and women’s brackets, are current and former college players, and some played pro ball overseas as well, including in Greece. NHIBT president Phil Bouzeos was most proud that this year, two players who have been competing in the NHIBT’s boys’ high school division landed NCAA Division I scholarships. One is slick sharpshooting and ball-handling wizard Dean Danos, a Northwest Indiana product who will start in his freshmen year at Northern Kentucky University this Fall, and the other is athletic guard Kurt Karis of Glenview, IL, who’ll play at Chicago State.

Women's marathon world record-holder Paula Radcliffe voiced the question on many lips: ``There are some very sick people out there, who would do something like this?'' Whoever he, she or they are, the bombers of the Boston Marathon committed a monstrous act. Targeting an activity —running — that is so quintessentially human and so bursting with life made them, by definition, inhuman and anti-life.

Sonya Lamonakis played sports in high school and college but never in her wildest dreams had an urge to be a professional boxer. This is “The Scholar” we’re talking about, her nickname in the ring. She holds two master’s degrees and is a teacher in New York. Sonya really is a big ole softy. But once you step between the ropes, any adversary had best have boned up on “The Sweet Science,” as is boxing’s own longtime moniker, lest they learn the hard way at Sonya’s school of hard knocks.

ANNUAL NHIBT THIS WEEKEND: This year's National Hellenic Invitational Basketball Tournament (April 4-7 at Fenwick H.S. in Oak Park, IL) will hold a special place in the hearts of the people who comprise this great institution, one of the pillars of the Greek American community nationwide. Began in 1931, the NHIBT played first at a since-demolished rustic old gymnasium on the campus of DePaul University on Chicago's north side. For a quarter of a century during its hey-days (c. 1950-1970), the venerable Cicero Stadium was its venue. During this time, the NHIBT was the premiere event in Greek America coast-to-coast at the outset of each Spring, almost as synonymous with Spring to Greek Americans as Easter itself.