The friendship started with a playful comment from the athletic director to the young spectator watching a Kansas University basketball game from his wheelchair.

“Come on now,” Lew Perkins told Zach Herries a few years ago. “You’re here to watch the basketball game, not the cheerleaders.”

Don’t worry about it, Zach, most of us have been there a time or two. Or a hundred.

The friendship between Perkins and Herries, who could be spotted wolfing popcorn together during tense moments of KU games a couple of years ago, has blossomed into a golf tournament today at Alvamar Public that bears Perkins’ name.

Last-second, walk-up registrants are welcome to play in the tournament that benefits the Douglas County Gators, a Special Olympics team. The $125 entry fee goes to a good cause and gives participants a shot at prizes.

“Awesome kid,” Perkins said of Herries, who has cerebral palsy. “Very special young man. Honor student. It’s a running joke with us now. Watch the game, not the cheerleaders.”

The tournament originally was scheduled for June 30, which partially explains what is expected to be a light turnout. Perkins said next year’s will be played on a weekday. Good move. Charity tournaments supply good and noble excuses for golfers to get away from the office. Most people don’t work on weekends and are golfing anyway.

Registration is at 11:30 a.m., lunch at noon, the shotgun start at 1.

The auction, which includes two Wilt Chamberlain items donated by his sister, follows the golf. One of the items is a bronze statue given to Wilt by the NBA for his 100-point game.

A former Special Olympian, Herries helps his father, Richard, coach a baseball team, so he’ll only catch the tail-end of the tournament, Richard said. Zach, 14, will drive Perkins’ cart. (No word yet on whether the compliance director will be on hand to make sure the A.D. doesn’t kick his ball back into the fairway.)

Richard looked back on the genesis of the friendship between Perkins and his son.

“Zach usually uses a walker or crutches, but for this game he was sitting in the wheelchair section, and he didn’t like it because people were walking in front of him before the game and he couldn’t see anything,” he said. “He was upset. Mr. Perkins saw that he was upset and asked me if he wanted to sit with him. Well, Zach knew the names of all the players and the coaches, but he didn’t have any idea what an athletic director was. I didn’t think he would want to sit with him, but he did, and they’ve been friends ever since. Ten people came up to Mr. Perkins, and before he talked to them he’d say, ‘Say hello to my new friend, Zach.'”

Zach, Richard said, has a pretty darn good baseball swing.

“He golfs, too,” Richard said of the Eudora Middle School student. “He’ll whiff sometimes, and when he does, he falls down. When that happens, he gets right back up and takes another swing at it.”

If Zach shows up today in time to whiff, there might be an underlying reason for the miscue. Instead of keeping his head down and looking at the ball, he just might be investigating whether any cheerleaders showed up for the event.