CHARLESTON, W.Va.— While the West Virginia State Boy’s High School Basketball Championship takes center stage at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center this week, many may overlook all of the action going on behind the scenes.
Food and drink vendors, clubs, and organizations set up shop during the tournaments and commit themselves to selling their products and getting their mission out to the fans all week long, typically from dawn until sundown.
The vendors not only support the fans but many teams, as well, and while most of their success stories might go unnoticed, sometimes their impact proves to be extraordinary.
Zul’s Frozen Lemonade out of Buckhannon has been serving up their drinks at the state championship nearly as long as they’ve been in business, since 1996, but last week, they witnessed a win that they will never forget. After the Wyoming East girl’s basketball team seemed to be the first team to have ever drank Zul’s lemonade courtside, the team won the game, leading the family-owned business to associate the win with drinking their product.
“It kind of feels great, I mean we would have never expected that to be like the winning reason,” says Kayla Walls, a spokesperson with Zul’s Frozen Lemonade.
Walls added that while their lemonade is just something people drink and then it’s gone, she said it still all pays off.
“We go through a lot of lemonade, a lot, through the two weeks of the boy’s and girl’s basketball, we go through a lot of lemonade, but it’s all worth it in the end,” said Walls.
However, lemonade isn’t the only product that’s causing potential wins at the championship, but coffee too. From espressos, to lattes, macchiatos and just your average cup of joe, Coal River Coffee Company is celebrating its second year hyping people up at the state tournaments through the variety of coffee they offer.
Founder and CEO of Coal River, Michael Ervin says their impact is crucial to the way people watch the game.
“People come from all corners of the state, they’re tired, they want a good cup of coffee, and they’re surprised when they come in and they’re like, ‘oh my gosh I can get a specialty cup of coffee,’ so it kind of goes along with everything and it helps them stay hyped, number one, helps them wake up, and it enhances the enjoyment of the game,” Ervin said.
Other vendor’s impact at the championship may not be as lighthearted but they can actually be lifesaving.
Prevent Suicide West Virginia was an organization present among the plethora of food vendors. They are a statewide organization that aims at preventing suicide, intervention, and postvention, and creates a safe space for people to have a conversation about their mental health.
Director of the organization, Barri Faucett said they chose to come to the tournament in order to reach everyone.
“No-one’s immune to suicide and anyone can be at risk, so we want to ensure that we can have conversations with little ones about being okay with their mental health if it’s not okay, as well as individuals who are a lot older and who have never had that opportunity to talk about their mental health,” Faucett said.
After being a vendor at the tournament for nearly a decade, Faucett said she noticed how people’s response to their mission have changed, saying that people have seemed to become more willing to open up about their mental health over the years.
Michelle Toman is the founder of a similar suicide prevention organization known as Brother Up, which she started after losing her brother to suicide almost 28 years ago. She agreed that their presence at the Coliseum and Convention Center has made all of the difference over the years.
“There are generations of people that have been coming here for years, you know, 30 plus years, and they’ve been taught specifically to not talk about mental health, to keep that at home and in private, and we know that that doesn’t work, that’s why we lose the people that we do to suicide,” Toman said.
Not only at basketball championships, Toman said that the stigma behind suicide and mental health is rightfully evolving and finally coming into light in every aspect of life.
“We used to whisper cancer and we don’t do that anymore, we take away its power, and we just know that we need to do that with suicide and our mental health too,” Toman added.
Zide’s Sporting Inc. out of Marietta, Ohio was yet another vendor making an impact at the state championship, and they weren’t doing it through mental health awareness or food, but by selling t-shirts with the team’s logos.
Being a vendor at the tournament for at least 35 years, Zide’s is the only vendor there licensed by the WVSSAC to sell custom-made shirts, hats, shorts, and hooded sweatshirts with all of the team’s names. A worker at the stand, Tim Cochran says their unique products provides a lot of excitement going into the game.
“Everyone seems excited when they come in and when they see their schools in the state championship souvenirs, they all seem excited,” said Cochran.
Along with being a major presence at the state championship, the shop has been in business for 65 years.