Pink Zone Raises Breast Cancer Awareness
Rider Athletics and the cheering crowd not only showed their cranberry pride during the men’s and women’s basketball doubleheader on February 21, but many athletes, coaches and audience members also wore pink to show support for breast cancer awareness.
For the third year in a row, Rider participated in the WBCA’s (Women’s Basketball Coaches Association) Pink Zone. To show support, the Rider women’s team wore pink shoelaces and pink shooting shirts. Coaches from both the men’s and women’s teams wore pink ribbons during the games.
The WBCA began the Pink Zone in 2007 as an initiative to raise breast cancer awareness in women’s basketball on campuses and in communities. Last year, more than 1,200 teams and organizations participated, reaching more than 830,000 fans and raising nearly $1 million for breast cancer awareness and research.
This year, Rider’s Department of Athletics donated a portion of the gate receipts from both games to local and national charitable organizations, including the Kay Yow/WBCA Cancer Fund. Yow, the fifth-winningest coach in women’s college basketball history, succumbed to the disease on January 24 at the age of 66. Karin Torchia, Rider’s associate director of Athletics and senior women’s administrator, said the event on the Lawrenceville campus raised about $1,000.
“I think the event is tremendously important because everyone knows somebody who has or had cancer,” Torchia said. “My mother is a breast cancer survivor. My best friend, Cathy Carter-Romero (director of Publications), is a breast cancer survivor. The event has a special meaning for me.”
Rider’s Zeta Tau Alpha (ZTA) sorority held a "Kiss for the Cure" fundraiser for breast cancer awareness in the lobby of Alumni Gym. The sorority raised $300 with their fundraiser, where for $1, a participant could kiss or sign a banner and receive a pink ribbon, or for $5, one could kiss or sign a banner and receive a goody bag filled with breast cancer facts, prevention tips and chocolates.
ZTA President Amy Schlachter, a junior Education major, said many sorority sisters’ relatives have been affected by breast cancer, and many join the sorority for that reason.
“It’s a personal thing for a lot of us. It’s something we have in common,” Schlachter said. “A lot of sisters’ mothers and grandmothers are survivors.”
The ZTA chapter at Rider holds a number of events to raise support for the philanthropy, including a tricky tray and a pie throwing contest, which will be held on Wednesday, April 8. Members also participate in the American Cancer Society’s Race for the Cure.
Athletics also invited representatives from the Breast Cancer Resource Center, a nonprofit program of the YWCA in Princeton, to participate and set up an information table in the lobby of Alumni Gym. The Center provides education, information and support to women and families affected by breast cancer and aims to increase an awareness of the disease in the community.
Deborah Raines, outreach coordinator for the Center, said she was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer in 2004.
“That’s why it’s really important to catch it early, detect it early, to live a hopeful life,” Raines said.
Breast cancer can affect women at any age, said Raines, who was diagnosed when she was 44. The Center wanted to be a visible presence during the Pink Zone event in order to raise awareness.
“Women are getting this disease in their 20s – in college,” she said. “There’s one breast cancer patient who comes to the Center who is 15. While it’s rare, it’s something you have to educate young women about. Just being a woman and aging – you’re at risk for breast cancer.”
Torchia said Athletics aims to educate female athletes about the breast cancer awareness. A few years ago, the staff invited a young survivor coalition to talk to the athletes.
“They always think that it doesn’t happen to them. We try to send that message that it can happen to you,” she concluded.
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