JANUARY 2010

SPORTS roundup
team deeee-troit basketball!
Eight friends have won five national championships
By Steve Stein
They’re best friends, and
they’re family. And the
eight guys on Team Detroit
are five-time Chaldean/
Assyrian Basketball Tournament
national champions.
“It’s good for our team that
we’re all close,” said captain
Anthony Acho. “We can say
whatever we want to each other
because we know the next
minute, everything will be all
right.”
Team Detroit captured its
second consecutive and fifth
overall Chaldean/Assyrian
championship over Labor Day
weekend in Rosemont, Ill.,
winning five of six games over a grueling two-day
stretch.
A three-point shot by Janero Dawood with seven
seconds left gave Team Detroit a 66-63 win over
a squad from Chicago in the championship game.
Team Detroit dedicated its title to the late Danny
Kassab, the inspirational quadriplegic who died
August 12.
“Danny touched many lives with his story, and
we wanted to give something back to him,” said
Team Detroit’s David Acho. “We went to the tournament
with a mission. We trained hard to become
champions.”
Besides Anthony and David Acho, Team Detroit’s
starting lineup also includes Tim Acho and
Sean Mattia. Stefan Kalabat, Shahir Matty and John
Roumayah make major contributions off the bench.
The eight men are all in their 20s, and their occupations
off the basketball court range from retail
to mortgage to real estate. Each played high school
basketball (Berkley, Birmingham Brother Rice,
Walled Lake Western and West Bloomfield were
the sites), and four played college basketball.
Anthony Acho played at Marygrove and
Michigan-Dearborn, Dawood at Rochester College,
Mattia at Michigan-Dearborn, and Kalabat at
Marygrove.
Team Detroit has been together for five years,
compiling an impressive 39-3 record in seven
Chaldean/Assyrian national tournaments during
the stretch. Two of the three losses came in championship
games against Sacramento, California.
The tournaments were held in Sterling Heights,
Boston, Illinois, Arizona and Rosemont.
Next for Team Detroit is another Chaldean/
Assyrian national tournament in February in
Modesto, California.
Team Detroit players are friends on and off the court
Anthony Acho said he’d help other Chaldean
basketball players who want to form a team to play
at the national level. At least eight players as well
as team sponsors are needed. Anthony Acho can
be reached at (248) 739-2724.
Kronk Kid
Teenage boxing sensation Zachariah Kas Shamoun
of Beverly Hills is now fighting out of the renowned
Kronk Gym in Detroit under the tutelage
of famed trainer Sugar Hill.
“We made the switch from his other gym because
of the opportunity for Zachariah to work
with Sugar,” said Connie Kas Shamoun, Zachariah’s
mother. “If you’re going to fight world-class
fighters, you need to train in a world-class gym
and work with a world-class trainer.”
Connie Kas Shamoun, herself a registered boxing
coach, said she’s noticed a big difference in her
son’s boxing skills since he began working with
Hill in April following an amicable
departure from the Casa
de Boxeo gym in Lincoln Park.
“Zachariah is much stronger
physically, and he’s really
connected with Sugar,” she
said. “A boxer needs to have a
strong rapport with the man in
his corner because success in
boxing is 50 percent physical
and 50 percent mental.”
Zachariah is 15 and a sophomore
at Birmingham Groves
High School. He’s been boxing
competitively around the state
and country since he was 8, and
his record is 72-8. He’s won several
Junior Olympics and Silver
Gloves titles and currently fights as a 119-pounder.
Nobody Runs Like Mike
When Mike Atchoo graduates this spring from
Troy High School, he’ll leave an athletic legacy
that will be nearly impossible to surpass.
After winning the Division 1 track state
championship in the 1600-meter run last spring,
Atchoo won the Division 1 cross country state
title this fall. Division 1 schools have the highest
enrollments in the state.
So which state championship means more to
the 18-year-old?
“If I had to pick, I’d have to say track because I
prefer that sport over cross country, and it was my
first state championship,” Atchoo said.
A 3.97 grade point average student, Atchoo
has narrowed his college choices to Georgetown,
Harvard, Stanford and Notre Dame.
They’re No. 1
Family and friends came out to support the Chaldean
Basketball League’s Thursday night championship game
December 17. Chris Jonna’s team, led by the incomparable
Jenero Dawood, had the right plan and a great
regular season, but couldn’t execute. Jason Hesano’s
team led by the stellar defensive play of Timmy Acho,
who was able to stifle Dawood, had the right defensive
scheme and played team ball. Hesano’s team claimed
the trophy with a final score of 48-33. Donations were
taken at the door for the Chaldean Federation of
America. Pictured here are the winning team of Timmy
Acho and Derek Dickow (front) and Lance Denha,
Jason Hesano, Danny Kallabat and Avis Kalasho.
32 CHALDEAN NEWS JANUARY 2010