Springfield, Ohio – In recognition of the on-going battle against cancer, and in honor of both those who have survived and those whose lives have been taken by the disease, Wittenberg Women’s Basketball Head Coach Sarah Jurewicz, class of 1998, has organized a campus celebration of Play for Kay, a national breast cancer awareness program organized by the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA).
The Tigers’ Play for Kay event will take place before, during and after a game against DePauw at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 13, in the Health, Physical Education and Recreation (HPER) Center. This is Wittenberg’s sixth consecutive year participating in the program.
Play for Kay, formerly known as Pink Zone after being created in 2007 under the name Think Pink, is the WBCA’s “global, unified effort…to assist in raising breast cancer awareness on the court, across campuses, in communities and beyond.” More than 1,000 colleges and high schools participate in the program each year, including Wittenberg, which has traditionally recognized breast cancer survivors during an annual halftime tribute ceremony.
The Wittenberg event annually pays tribute to the late Pam Evans Smith, for whom the arena in the university's HPER Center was named on Feb. 2, 2008. Smith was a 1982 graduate of Wittenberg who took the reins of her alma mater’s women’s basketball program in 1986 and amassed more than 400 victories through 2007, despite a lengthy battle with cancer that eventually claimed her life in June of that year.
To honor Smith’s memory, the first seat at the front end of the Tigers’ bench will be left empty during Wittenberg’s Play for Kay event.
T-shirts will be sold throughout the event, a breast cancer awareness information table will be set up to educate participants, and donations will be accepted to benefit Wittenberg’s Pam Evans Smith Memorial Fund. In addition, flyers advertising the annual Pam Evans Smith Memorial 5K Walk/Run will be distributed, and fans will have the opportunity to tie ribbons to a “Tree of Hope” in honor of those affected by the disease.
Created one month after the women’s basketball coach with the most wins and highest winning percentage in NCAC history passed away, the Pam Evans Smith Memorial Fund has raised more than $100,000 to provide scholarships to deserving female senior students who demonstrate leadership and academic abilities at Wittenberg.
Proceeds from the sale of T-shirts go to the Kay Yow Cancer Research Fund, named for the legendary North Carolina State women’s basketball coach who died of the disease in 2009.
Written By: Ryan Maurer
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