Travis Scott, Cactus Jack Foundation to host HBCU Celebrity Softball Classic in 2023
HOUSTON - The Cactus Jack Celebrity Softball Classic will return to Minute Maid Park in 2023, this time, to support and highlight HBCUs.
The Astros Foundation announced a partnership with the Cactus Jack Foundation to be the title sponsor for the first annual Cactus Jack Foundation HBCU Celebrity Softball Classic to be held on Feb. 16, 2023, at Minute Maid Park. The Classic will be a round-robin collegiate baseball tournament highlighting several Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and their baseball programs on the opening weekend of college baseball.
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Travis Scott's and his Cactus Jack Foundation will also be working together with Project H.E.A.L. which is an initiative dedicated to addressing challenges facing youth, especially those from marginalized and at-risk communities.
The gates for the event will open at 5:30 p.m. with the Homerun Derby starting at 7 p.m. and the softball game to begin after at 7:30 p.m.
HOUSTON, TEXAS - NOVEMBER 04: Travis Scott steps up to bat during the 2021 Cactus Jack Foundation fall classic softball game at Minute Maid Park on November 04, 2021 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images)
The HBCUs scheduled to attend are Texas Southern University, Prairie View A&M, Southern University and A&M College, Grambling State University, Jackson State University, and Mississippi Valley State University.
This year's event is said to feature an all-star lineup of baseball Hall of Famers and A-list entertainers who will participate in a Homerun Derby and a Softball Game. Last year's event featured celebrities such as Travis Scott himself, Kendall Jenner, Mookie Betts, Gary Sheffield, and Hall of Famers Reggie "Mr. October" Jackson and Jeff Bagwell.
The foundation says proceeds generated from the Fall Classic will go towards the Waymon Webster Scholarship Fund, which provides financial support to HBCU seniors for final tuition fees, and allows those students to graduate and receive their college diploma on time. In the past, this initiative was able to raise $1 million in scholarships for 100 graduating HBCU seniors.
Scott is said to have a longstanding commitment to providing scholarship opportunities for students at HBCUs because of his own family’s longtime legacy of studying, working at, and supporting HBCUs.
His mother attended Grambling University, his father attended Prairie View A&M, which is where his brother currently studies, and his sister graduated from Howard University last year. His grandfather, Waymon Webster, was an alumnus and dean of Prairie View A&M graduate school and is the namesake of the Waymon Webster Scholarship Fund.