Pro Sports Team Challenge

By Richard Diaz
Love of Sports Correspondent

Have you ever wondered what it’d be like see some of your favorite athletes from different sports take on one another in a legitimate sports event?

Aside from a Pro-Am tournament or charity game, there’s really no competitive event that features athletes from the four major sports. As fun as those events are to watch, rare is the occasion for them to be competitive or different.

That being said, the two-day Pro Sports Team Challenge at Eagle Falls Golf Course at Fantasy Springs Resort in Palm Springs, California, on June 7 and 8 is a similar event, only with a totally different and competitive twist.

TNT personality and NBA Hall-of-Famer Charles Barkley is the tournament commissioner, which in itself is interesting, to say the least. As commissioner, he’s in the midst of organizing the charity tournament to end all tournaments. Rather than pitting a bunch of athletes against one another for a typical weekend of golf, Sir Charles and the rest of the tournament organizers have come up with the ingenious idea of foursomes from each of the major sports going at it for charity and bragging rights.

In addition to a total charity purse of $100,000, the groups will be playing for ultimate bragging rights as well. Even though that term is often used loosely, that’s not the case here.

As Team Challenge spokesman Mike Paul puts it, “Athletes from each sport think that they are the best golfers. It’s high time we found out who really is: baseball, football, basketball or hockey.”

While a tournament like this will typically draw one or two superstars, these foursomes are anything but ordinary.

The baseball team is comprised of Ozzie Smith, George Brett, Vince Coleman and a player to be named later. Basketball will consist of Charles Barkley as a non-playing team captain, Jason Kidd, Julius ‘Dr. J’ Irving and a couple of players to be named before the tournament begins. The football foursome includes Drew Brees, LaDanian Tomlinson, John Elway and Michael Strahan. And not to be forgotten, hockey will field a foursome including the likes of Mario Lemieux, Brett Hull, Grant Fuhr and Pierre Larouche.

The Pro Sports Team Challenge seems to be a charity tournament that might actually be fun to watch, with 16 legends that’ll hit the links for a good cause.

Another twist is the ability for fans from across the globe to directly interact with the tournament as it happens. Through online voting and text messages, fans will have the ability to determine which golfer from each team will play for double points in each of the tournaments four rounds.

Fans are referred to as “ProCoaches™” in the Team Challenge, and all they have to do is log onto http://www.teamchallenge.com or send a text from their cell phones to sign up to coach whichever team they’d like to cheer for. This gives them a chance to interact with other “ProCoaches™” in what amounts to American Idol meets fantasy sports like never before.

Even though that might not be enough to entice you towards interaction, there’s one more element that deserves a whole lot of love.

The event purse already stands at $250,000. In addition to that, it’ll increase by a $1.00 for each fan that registers as a paid “ProCoach™” for the winning team. Simply put, more fans means more money going to worthwhile charities.

In the end, I’ve got to show some love to the Pro Sports Team Challenge for doing something totally revolutionary in the name of charity.