World’s Largest Homeschool Sporting Event Celebrates 25 Years

Over 325 teams have converged on the Ozarks for the 25th annual National Christian HomeSchool Basketball Championships this week.

For the 8th consecutive year, Springfield, Missouri, is hosting the 5-day tournament, which features teams from about 30 states and games in more than 20 gyms across the city. The championship games are held at the John Q. Hammons Student Center on the campus of Missouri State University.

“Homeschool has a stigma of maybe not being as much of a well-oiled machine as a state-run program, but this is a wonderfully run program which gives opportunities to the homeschool community that they just don’t get,” homeschool dad Scott Kellogg told KOLR News.

The tournament’s official website heralds the championship as the largest homeschool sporting event in the world. To be eligible to play in the tournament, all student-athletes on a team must maintain at least a 2.0 GPA and be “homeschooled continuously.” In addition to basketball, tournaments are held throughout the year for cross country, track and field, golf, soccer, and volleyball.

The city of Springfield also receives a huge economic boost from the tournaments. Approximately 8,000 people have booked around 7,500 hotel rooms this week, and visitor spending is expected to approach $3.5 million.