On Feb. 23, Cal Poly’s Conference and Events Planning and Cal Poly Athletics hosted the Harlem Globetrotters in the Mott Athletics Center in front of a sold-out crowd of 2,600 community members.
Tickets were available to all for purchase for the Globetrotters’ stop in San Luis Obispo on Cal Poly’s ticket office website, and the event was advertised on GoPoly.com.
The Globetrotters were founded in 1926 in Chicago, Illinois before making the move to Harlem, New York, and are an exhibition basketball team that combines theater and comedy in their style of play, according to their website. They made the stop in San Luis Obispo as a part of their North American 2024 tour.
Cal Poly’s Director of Conference Services and Event Planning Erin Scherer headed the organization of the event. She said there were a lot of moving parts required to prepare for their show.
“It was a really good partnership between my team and Athletics and [Associate Athletic Director] Jesse Latino, who knows everything about the facility,” Scherer said.
Many moving parts included approval from Athletics, first and foremost, campus dining, parking services and even moving a men’s basketball practice to a different facility for that day just so they could hold the event, according to Scherer.
Nevertheless, Mott Athletics Center was filled to the brim with families and students alike to enjoy the show the Globetrotters put on.
“Having [Mott] really full and having that energy was so awesome,” Scherer said.
One of Scherer and Director of Commercial Services Russell Monteath’s goals for this event was to open up the possibilities to hold other events like this on Cal Poly’s campus to bring the community together.
“There’s a lot of community in the north county and south county that coming down to Cal Poly is a really cool idea and concept,” Monteath said.
Scherer and Monteath said the Globetrotters want to come back for another visit in 2025.
“People are drawn and want to come to events at Cal Poly,” Monteath said. “I think by offering more and doing more things, you get more people that [want] to come up.”
