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Kirkwood Boosts Think Pink Cause

By February 26, 2008January 21st, 2019No Comments

Mid-Feb. events in Johnson Hall mixed fun and fund-raising for national cancer effort

On Feb. 16, Johnson Hall was pink. Fans came expecting to see the classic Kirkwood Blue as the dominant color in the gym. They might have been surprised to see a blaze of pink throughout. It was a timely color change, for a good cause.

For the past several weeks, Coach Kim Muhl and the Kirkwood women’s basketball team have engaged the support of various parts of Kirkwood to join the “Think Pink” project, a breast cancer awareness campaign of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association. The Eagles Think Pink campaign included T-shirt sales, cookies at the game and a share of the Johnson Hall ticket proceeds, all sent to the WBCA national campaign in Atlanta.

Coach Muhl credited many Eagles in making the day a success.”My assistant coach, Joe Hruska was a big part of all this. We thank Jill Williams and her volleyball team for selling the donated cookies at the game. Seth Vander Tuig and Mary Huffman helped out from Student Life. Judy Usher, Brenda Becker and Julene Udell also pitched in. Plus, big thanks to Kristie Fisher and Kim Fensterman for their great support. We were able to send over $600 to the WBCA to add to the cause. It was a great experience,” Muhl said.

The WBCA “Think Pink” initiative is a global, unified effort for the group’s nation of coaches to assist in raising breast cancer awareness on the court, across campuses, in communities and beyond. The week set aside for this year’s initiative was February 8 – 17, with many of the nation’s teams coordinating events during that period.

“The WBCA is very excited to promote an initiative that touches all levels of our membership and unifies them for such a great cause,” said WBCA CEO Beth Bass stated early in February. “It has been remarkable to watch the support of this initiative grow from 120 teams last year to over 900 teams from a variety for sports for 2008. With the help of each of our members, the women’s basketball community and beyond can make a difference in the fight against breast cancer.”

Kirkwood was in some pretty good company in the national Think Pink efforts, with names such as Harvard, Duke, LSU, Rutgers and Notre Dame among the participants. Iowa State, UNI and the University of Iowa also participated, along with Drake and Coe College. More than 1,100 college athletic programs are now part of Think Pink across the U.S. Kirkwood was the only Iowa community college doing their direct part in this gallant nationwide project.

A late February report from the WBCA indicated that national Think Pink fund-raising was nearing $490,000—all going to women’s cancer research and support.