Buffalo Grove basketball tournament promotes organ donation

A sixth grade basketball tournament celebrating the life of a former St. Mary student and raising awareness of the importance of organ donation is turning 20 this year.

Sean McInerney, who played basketball and football for the Bisons at the Buffalo Grove school, died in a car accident in 1990 at age 19.

The Sean McInerney Basketball Tournament was started by Ann Gramm, then the athletic director at Saint Mary, and 1,600 players have participated since then.

This year’s tournament, which starts at 12:30 p.m. Monday, Dec. 26, in the Duffy Activity Center, 50 N. Buffalo Grove Road, and ends with a game and trophy presentation at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 28, will feature six Catholic elementary schools. They are St. Mary, St. Hubert in Hoffman Estates, St. Raymond in Mount Prospect, Sacred Heart in Winnetka, St. Patrick in Wadsworth, St. James in Arlington Heights and St. Alphonsus in Prospect Heights.

St. Mary athletic director Mary Kantor organizes and directs the tournament, said Sean’s dad, Jim McInerney. She counts on volunteers and parents, friends of friends, and former players who have been in the tournament to come back and volunteer.

One of those volunteers was Declan Sullivan, 20, from Long Grove, who died at the University of Notre Dame in the fall of 2010 when the aerial lift from which he was filming football practice tipped over in high winds. Both attended St. Mary and Carmel High School in Mundelein.

“The 20th anniversary says to me that the Saint Mary family remembers Sean, just like we remember Declan Sullivan,” Jim McInerney said, adding that he expects the tournament will continue “as long as there is a St. Mary School.”

When Sean died, his heart was donated so someone else would have a chance to live.

“Life is so precious and death could happen any time,” McInerney said. “Organ donation is truly the gift of life and quality of life.”