HOUSTON -- Every year, Astros Urban Youth Academy director Daryl Wade and Urban Youth Academy manager Duane Stelly brainstorm to come up with ideas of how to enhance the program. The thought of having a college baseball tournament at Minute Maid Park for HBCUs was met with support throughout the organization, and it soon blossomed into a nationally televised event.

Six schools from the Southwestern Athletic Conference will be at Minute Maid Park beginning Friday for the inaugural Cactus Jack HBCU Classic, a round-robin college baseball tournament highlighting Historically Black Colleges and Universities and their baseball programs. Other events, including a college fair and a gospel breakfast, will complement the tournament.

As far as baseball goes, the tournament will feature three games per day on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, highlighted by Saturday’s in-state rivalry matchups: Texas Southern vs. Prairie View A&M (7:05 p.m. CT), Southern vs. Grambling State (3:05 p.m. CT) and Jackson State vs. Mississippi Valley State (11:05 a.m. CT). All three Saturday games will be televised on AT&T SportsNet SW, as well as streamed on Astros.com and the MLB app. MLB Network will air Saturday’s Jackson State-MVSU game live.

“We were talking about having a small college HBCU tournament,” Wade said. “We were at Spring Training last year with [manager] Dusty [Baker] and we mentioned it to him. He said, ‘That sounds like a good idea, y’all ought to try that.’”

Wade and Stelly ran the idea past Astros senior vice president for community affairs and executive director of the Astros Foundation, Paula Harris, who immediately jumped on board.

“Whenever you have a champion for something, things go a lot easier,” Wade said.

The original idea was simply an HBCU tournament for small colleges, but the Astros felt they needed to invite TSU and Prairie View A&M because those schools are local. That led to four other schools in the SWAC jumping at the chance to play at Minute Maid Park and on television.

“Normally we would be opening up with some bigger D-Is for the guaranteed money, just to help out with the program, but to be able to do this in your hometown, in your own state, it’s good,” said Prairie View coach Auntwan Riggins, who has signed several players from the RBI programs in Houston, Austin and New Orleans. “It’s good for us, it’s good for the university and the conference.”

What’s more, the Astros have invited more than 100 colleges and universities to come to Minute Maid Park on Saturday for a college fair, including the University of Houston and University of Texas. Kids who participate in the college fair will get free tickets to the game. Wade said more than 1,000 students have registered for the college fair.

“So we're excited about that being a big day here,” he said.

Wade said baseball scouts have been invited to a breakfast Friday night prior to the games, and Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson, who works as an advisor for Astros owner Jim Crane, will speak at a reception Thursday night for the players and coaches. Tyrone Brooks, MLB’s senior director of front office and field staff diversity pipeline program, will also speak, Wade said.

“Baseball this week in February is not what everybody wants to do,” Wade said. “We still got basketball going on in the gym. So we know we had to find a way to try to get people to come out and support it, and I think they will. We got lots of parents coming in, of course, and having a game televised I think was a big, big thing for Duane and I to know we went from just trying to play some baseball games to having a nationally televised event.”

Prior to the tournament, rapper Travis Scott and his Cactus Jack Foundation will play host to a celebrity softball tournament Thursday night at Minute Maid Park. The event, which will provide scholarship opportunities for students at HBCUs, will feature Baseball Hall of famers Ken Griffey Jr. and Jackson, along with former baseball stars CC Sabathia, Jose Canseco, Gary Sheffield and Shane Victorino; former NFL stars Terrell Owens, Adrian Peterson and Andre Johnson; and former NBA stars Tracy McGrady, Robert Horry and Steve Francis, along with rappers Scarface, Bun B, Slim Thug and Paul Wall, among others.