CIAA Commissioner Jacqie McWilliams Parker discusses the 2024 CIAA Men's and Women's Basketball Tournament.
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00:00 We know it's going down in Baltimore, but you can't go down and have it going down if you don't
00:05 have the person who makes it go down. And it is none other than Commissioner Jackie McWilliams
00:13 Parker. Commissioner, how are you doing? >> Awesome, it's a great day in the Charm City,
00:19 so I'm feeling really good. The energy is really good here. It's been a great week so far,
00:24 so it's exciting. >> Yeah, well, you guys started what, on Sunday or is it Monday?
00:30 >> I started on Friday. So Baltimore, we flew in Friday evening and Buie stayed and the local
00:38 contributors and the airport, Thurgood Marshall BWI Airport was here. We had a band, we got out
00:47 and had a reception. So I've been going since Friday. We had a clinic on Saturday, we had the
00:53 honors awards on Sunday and then games on Monday and this event and that event every single day.
01:00 So there's been a lot going on for the last, this is my seventh day in every day.
01:05 >> Wow. >> Yeah.
01:06 >> Seven days and you just been constantly on the road. I've been taking a look at your
01:13 social media postings, the CIWA game recaps and everything. It's just been amazing how well you
01:21 guys have this covered. The event is, it's really one of the best conference events of all,
01:30 not only in HBCUs, across the board, across the land in my opinion.
01:35 >> Yeah, Kyle, I've learned from the best of the best, working at the NCAA and working in
01:41 championships and understanding the value of partnerships with cities and contributors and
01:48 the community. I mean, those things are dear to the heart of why you're in sports and how you
01:52 connect all the dots. And I've been fortunate enough to lead this conference and have presidents
01:58 that understand or at least understand the vision that I have that makes sense for our 13 member
02:03 institutions and using the sport of basketball to really build community. And we've been able to do
02:09 that with our sports. I mean, with our, yeah, with our sponsorships and partnerships. I just
02:13 left the career expo, only intended just to walk through and ended up doing a lot of selfies and
02:18 having conversations, folks from Virginia and Maryland, our students, from the White House.
02:26 I mean, it's an incredible opportunity that we've been able to use this tournament
02:30 to build out for our students to participate in the greatest way.