Springfield, Ohio – In honor of both those who have survived and those whose lives have been taken by cancer, Wittenberg University Women’s Basketball is once again hosting 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 the final home game of the 2014-15 season, when Wittenberg takes on Kenyon at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 18, in the Health, Physical Education and Recreation (HPER) Center. This is Wittenberg’s eighth 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. Fans will have the opportunity to add a pink ribbon to a cancer memorial board that will be located in the lobby, near the table where tickets are sold.
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