WS Chronicle

Now that the pandemic restrictions have been lifted, Nakeeba Orr and the Ladies of Elite Eight are ready to get back to being active. They will host the Fancy Leg Women’s Kickball Tournament on Saturday, Aug. 7 at Twin City Ballfields starting at 9 a.m.

This is the first tournament in what Orr hopes is an annual occurrence. Her hopes are to hold multiple events throughout the summer months to help keep women active and continue with the fellowship of local high school graduates.

The tournament is open to graduates of Mt. Tabor, Parkland, Carver, Reynolds, North Forsyth, Glenn, East Forsyth and West Forsyth. The teams will be separated into regions. North Forsyth and Mt. Tabor will represent the North, Parkland and Glenn will represent the South, Carver and East Forsyth will represent the East and West Forsyth and Reynolds will make up the West region.

“This is hopefully the kicking off to a women’s summer kickball league,” said Orr. “I kind of want to give women a chance to fellowship and become healthier and participate in something active.”

Orr says the response to the tournament got off to a slow start due to many ladies assuming she was going to hold the tournament in April as they do for the annual Elite Eight Kickball Tournament and fundraiser. Once she explained that this tournament will be held during the summer and is more of a league with multiple events, more alumni began to pledge their participation.

Orr and the organizers of the event thought about having vendors and possibly even some sort of clothing or food drive, similar to what they do with the Elite Eight Kickball tournament, but instead chose to keep this event simple and build up to more in later events.

“People have been asking me to do a kickball tournament, so we are just going to do it simple, but going forward, then we’ll do a back-to-school drive and things like that,” she said.

Getting back active following the lockdown of the pandemic was another motivation for Orr. She says once people were allowed to come back outside, it was wintertime, so this summer is the first time people really have the chance to congregate together in larger groups. She also says several women have experienced weight gain during the pandemic as well, so she feels this would be a good way to get them back active.

“I’ve talked to a lot of women that have expressed to me that they have gained a lot of COVID weight, or their social life has kind of fallen short, as well as wanting to have a positive environment to fight the depression part of it too,” Orr stated.  

One of the biggest perks for Orr is having the opportunity to reconnect with old classmates, as well as building friendships with younger alumni who have recently graduated from one of the eight schools.

“It’s always a joy to see some of my old classmates and people that I did attend school with, as well as people I graduated school with from other schools,” she said. “There’s been a lot of death and sadness going on with COVID and violence in the community, so I think this gives the community a way to fellowship without always resulting to nightlife and things like that. It empowers women to see other women active and come together and be positive.”

Orr says that they are dedicating this tournament to Nykia Stinson, their Carver High School representative, who is currently battling breast cancer.

“That’s another reason why I felt like we needed to come together too,” Orr said about Stinson. “It’s a lot of things that are affecting us women that we really don’t address, so this is one of the things I wanted to address and let her know we have her back and she means a lot to all of us. This is why this is going to be dedicated to her and her fight and her being strong through the whole battle of breast cancer.”

For more information about the tournament, contact Nakeeba Orr on Facebook or Facebook Messenger.