Springfield, Ohio — Wittenberg University's men's and women's swimming and diving teams joined hundreds of other college, high school and club teams across the country to raise awareness and much-needed funds for cancer research recently as part of the fifth annual "Ted Mullin Leave it in the Pool, Hour of Power Relay." Wittenberg participated in the event for a fourth straight year on Tuesday, Nov. 9, in the HPER Center Natatorium.

The national program was started in 2005 at Carleton College, after Ted Mullin, a member of the men's swimming and diving team, died of a rare soft-tissue cancer called sarcoma. The event has grown to include hundreds of college, high school and club teams, in addition to teams of study abroad students, all of whom raised money for the Ted Mullin Fund for Sarcoma Research at the University of Chicago.

Over the first four years of the "Ted Mullin Leave it in the Pool, Hour of Power Relay," more than $190,000 has been raised.

Wittenberg's Hour of Power, organized in 2010 by Adam Schick, class of 2011 from Bloomington, Ind., and Phil Bambach, class of 2011 from Dublin, Ohio, was an hour-long sprint relay in which team members swam 50-yard lengths of each different stroke. The team was divided into six lanes of eight to nine team members each, mixing the men's and women's teams together and including the members who compete only as divers during meets.

Afterward, team members huddled to reflect upon their experience, with several mentioning personal connections to cancer, including family losses and survivor stories as well. For added motivation, team members needed only to look to assistant coaches Daneen Maughmer and Jim Smith, both of whom are cancer survivors.