Sometimes, a basketball game is much more than 12 players, a court and a ball. Sometimes it’s a chance to feel as though it is possible to do something against a faceless demon that took away a loved one.
This Friday’s Coaches vs. Cancer game between Langley and Marshall High Schools will be the fifth time Kevin Weeren and Brian Doyle have raised the stakes at one of their two regular-season match ups, working together to raise money and awareness for the American Cancer Society.
“This is a program sponsored by the National Association of Basketball Coaches and the American Cancer Society,” said Doyle, the Langley boys basketball coach. “We designate one game every year as our Coaches vs. Cancer game and alternate who hosts the game, and every year we try to raise a little more money than the year before during the game.”
The first few years, the coaches only sent out letters to the players’ families and fans about the game, asking for donations during the event, but this year, a group of students from Marshall has decided to make the game a marketing media blitz.
“We belong to a DECA chapter and are part of the Association of Marketing Students,” said Marshall junior Holly Grant. DECA is the Distributive Education Clubs of America, a club for future business professionals and public relations executives alike.
“I found out about the game from my counselor, Coach Weeren, and no one really knew about the game before,” she said. “We wanted to let people know that the game benefits the American Cancer Society, to raise more money and provide cancer awareness at the same time.
Grant has been working since November with Shaney Soderquist and Kenan Sammain to contact as much local media, including radio stations, newspapers and school organizations, to bring in people and donations.
Over the course of the past four years, the Coaches vs. Cancer game has received a total of over $10,000 in donations, Doyle said. This year, the DECA team is hoping to raise $7,000 from the game, more than double the donation from last year.
“There will be a dinner for parents of the players before the game, which should raise $1,000 on its own,” Grant said. The admission fee of $25 per person includes an automatic $20 donation to the ACS, she said.
“We also asked Mr. Weeren to talk about his dad during the dinner and me, Shaney and Kenan will say something as well,” Grant said.
Weeren has a personal tie to this game.
“MY FATHER WAS diagnosed with lung cancer a few years ago which came out of the blue, he never smoked,” Weeren said. “Participating in this program was a way for me to feel like I was sort of doing something about his cancer when I couldn’t do anything else.”
Weeren and Doyle have been friends for years, and because their teams play each other twice a season, it was an easy choice to set up the Coaches vs. Cancer program between the two schools.
“We always had the idea of making this event bigger, and the kids have just taken it to another level, they’ve really gotten into it,” he said.
There will be a table set up before and during the game with a representative from the American Cancer Society, handing out information and also receiving a check for all money collected by halftime of the game.
Weeren also credits the two advisors for DECA, Mary Ellen McCormack and Stephanie Thompson, for encouraging and helping the three students organize their campaign.
But the real focus of this game isn’t winning for either team, it’s the chance to talk to a large group of students and parents about a terrible disease.
“This game means a lot to me,” Weeren said. “Basketball meant a lot to my dad, he coached me when I was younger.”
When he started coaching his own team at Marshall, his father was living in Boston and couldn’t come down to watch him.
“The last time he got out of the house was for our first Coaches vs. Cancer game, he died a few months later,” he said.
As guidance counselors, both men admit that coaching basketball is more than just teaching students plays and tactics to win games.
“We want to teach our kids that there’s more to life than just basketball, that it’s important to be generous and to commit to certain causes that are important to you,” Doyle said.
“In this day and age, nearly every family is touched by cancer,” he said. “Any drop in the bucket we can contribute is worthwhile.”
The game will be held at Marshall at 7:30 p.m. on Friday night. Tickets are available at the door and donations will be accepted during the game.