Preble Shawnee High School hoop star Olivia “Liv” Thompson led her team to the district finals, earned a college basketball scholarship, and topped it off with free tickets to the First Four games at UD Arena.
DAYTON — Preble Shawnee High School hoop star Olivia “Liv” Thompson led her team to the district finals, earned a college basketball scholarship, and topped it off with free tickets to the First Four games at UD Arena.
Liv, her parents Bill and Eva Thompson, and her boyfriend Reiley watched nail-biting wins by Pittsburgh and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in the March 14 opening round of the NCAA First Four thanks to the Community Blood Center Hoops Madness blood drive.
Everyone who registered to donate with CBC Feb. 27-March 9, was entered in the Hoops Madness drawing for two sets of First Four tickets.
Bill lives in Camden and works and donates at Cleveland-Cliffs Middletown Works with Germantown donor Craig Budig. Budig won the tickets when he made his 18th lifetime donation Feb. 27 at the Dayton CBC.
Instead of keeping them, Budig treated them like a rebound and made a full court pass to Bill because he knew about Liv.
“We worked together for 20 years,” said Budig. “His daughter is a senior at Preble Shawnee, she played high school basketball, traveling basketball, and is going to play college basketball. He went to UK, he’s a donor, and his daughter is the biggest thing.”
Olivia said she dreamed of playing college basketball since she was five years old. She was named first team All Southwest Ohio point guard, played for the Dayton Lady Hoopstars, and earned a scholarship to the University of Northwestern Ohio in Lima.
“She loves basketball, and this will be a good time for her,” said Bill, who donated in January at the Cleveland-Cliffs employee blood drive.
“I usually do, every time they’re here,” Bill said. “I worked with an engineer who got sick and goes often for transfusions. I gave in honor of him. That’s the reason I started giving. When COVID hit, I stepped it up and was honored at the Masonic Lodge for my one gallon donation.”
Budig donates regularly at the Germantown Methodist Church but missed the last blood drive because of a maintenance outage at work. To stay on schedule, he donated at the Dayton CBC and won the tickets, a twist of faith for both Budig and Bill.
“We had a great time,” said Bill.
