Alumni hoops game canceled!

Block brothers still memorialized with scholarship

By Steve Sherman
Sports Editor

This is big news in the high school basketball community.
The Rick & Chris Block Memorial Alumni Classic basketball game will NOT take place this year. The Block family had hosted the game at Pennsbury High School East for the past 14 years.
Oh, the Block family is still hosting a March 7 fundraiser that helps fund a scholarship named for Pennsbury High hoops standouts Rick and Chris Block.
But the game has been canceled.
The reason is the red hot Pennsbury boys basketball team. When Block family members made a recent decision to cancel the game, the Falcons hadn’t lost a game to a regional opponent. Of course, by now everyone’s heard that 4th-seeded Pennsbury lost their district semifinal match to No. 8 seed Norristown.
Still, the Blocks wanted to support the orange and black.
“Our supporters are people who follow high school basketball, mainly Pennsbury,” said family matriarch Jan Block. “The question was ‘how do you do this when the entire community is hepped up over the team?’”
The annual event will still be held Saturday, March 7, only now it will take the form of a beef-and-beer to be held at DaBar on New Falls Road in Fairless Hills.
And the Block scholarship will still be awarded, though according to Ms. Block, family members aren’t exactly sure when and where that announcement will take place.
“The [scholarship] will not go away,” said Jan Block. “My sons will still be honored with this scholarship, no matter what.”
The Block Memorial Classic and the night of family fun and entertainment that surrounded it was begun initially as a way for the Blocks to remember family member and Pennsbury hoops standout Rick Block (Class of 1980) who died tragically in a plane crash in 1994.
Chris is a 1985 Pennsbury graduate and hoops star who was inducted into the PHS Athletic Hall of Fame in 2004. For more than a decade, Chris was instrumental in organizing the alumni basketball game as a way of honoring his brother Rick, who was also a member of that prestigious club.
But then three-and-a-half years ago, Chris died suddenly from a condition known as Hypertrobic Cardiomyopathy (HCM), also known as an enlarged heart. So the name of the game was changed in 2006 to memorialize both brothers.
Fourth on Pennsbury's FG percentage list for his high school career, Chris was just 38 years-old when he died in his sleep in July 2005, leaving behind wife Lisa and four children. Rick still holds the record at Pennsbury for both season and career field goal percentage.
The Blocks hope that the memory of their loved ones will live on in the form of the scholarship award given to a Falcons varsity basketball player who most closely emulates the play of the Block brothers on the basketball court.
Both Rick and Chris were standout students so scholarship winners have to do more than exhibit expertise on the hardwood. They must also demonstrate the ability to perform in the classroom. To qualify for the award, athletes must have a 3.0 GPA or higher.
Last year, the award went to point guard Sarah Thorn, who now plays basketball at St. Francis University.
Past Block Memorial scholars include Bradie Vaughan, Meghan McDavid, Brian Besecker, Lindsey Krasna (Cornell), Sulaiman Abdur-Rahman, Matthew Kettles, Meghan Sweeney, Kurt Bergmann, Jeff Piscadlo, Michael Collins, Mark Hentosh, John Maxey and Jared Birnbaum.
The fun starts at 6:30 p.m. March 7 at DaBar. Door prizes include iPods, flash drives, gift certificates and sports memorabilia. The cost is $7 for adults, $3 for children.