The basketball game last Thursday against the Green Bay Phoenix included an eventful halftime. Travis Bader’s jersey number was retired and his banner placed on the wall of the O’rena. In addition, the swim and dive team held their 11th annual mitten toss.

The mitten toss is a tradition in which winter gear is collected among the athletes to be thrown onto the court during half time. Once the items are thrown by the audience, the swim team collects the mittens and they are donated to The Baldwin Center.  

“The purpose of this event is to help out the less fortunate,” Colby Haan, the swim team member in charge of the event this year, said. “There are people in serious need of a lot of things, especially in the winter.”

This is the 11th consecutive year that Oakland swim and dive has held the mitten toss. The event was first created by associate head coach Shawn Kornoelje over a decade ago.

“Every year he motivates us to do the best job possible with this event and does a very good job explaining the impact we have on the community when we organize this event,” Haan said.

Originally, the swim and dive team was the only team to participate in the event. Over the years, the Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) has become more involved. The swim and dive team’s collaboration with the SAAC has resulted in increased participation from other Oakland athletic teams as well.

“I’ve gotten a huge amount of help from SAAC and other students athletes as well,” Haan said. “It wouldn’t have been possible without some of those people.”

The biggest challenge facing Haan and the others in charge of planning the event was getting the word out. The swim and dive team even worked with the marketing department to make sure everyone knew about the mitten toss.  The SAAC representatives of each team passed the word on to their teams to help gather donations.

On the day of the mitten toss, the swim and dive team collected the mittens from each sports team and passed them out to the children in the stands of the O’rena. At half time, the crowd threw the donated mittens onto the court to be collected by the swim team.

“At this point in the year, The Baldwin Center is starting to run out of the donations they’ve collected all year,” Haan explained. “The 500-plus mittens we’ve collected will really help.”