A Great Night To Wear Pink
Phoebus’ football squad wore pink shoelaces and other clothes Thursday to spread the word of Breast Cancer Awareness Month during a 63-7 win over Menchville, which also wore pink. Photos by Jason Norman
Even referees like Tony Krug helped spread awareness, as nearly everyone at the game was pinned with a pink ribbon.
On Thursday night, two Peninsula District football teams proved that real men truly do indeed wear pink.
But so do real women, and so do real children. Because for a brief moment that night, a pair of schools united to face an enemy stronger than any who have ever stepped across the sidelines at Darling Stadium.
Following in the footsteps of their NFL counterparts, Phoebus and Menchville threaded their cleats with pink laces and wore gloves and towels of the same shade in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month - and the estimated 40,000 women that the disease will steal this year alone. Throughout the stands and along the sidelines, cheerleaders looped pink bands through their hair, parents and friends displayed pink hats, scarves, and jackets, and nearly everyone - even the officials -- was pinned with a pink ribbon, the symbol of America's battle with the illness.
Last Sunday, Nina Robinson was checking out the weekly pro football action. Between huddles, she noticed that some of the players were wearing pink shoes, gloves, and other colored clothing.
Robinson, whose son Chaz is in his last year on the Phantom gridiron, decided to bring the movement home.
"I thought it was a great idea," she said. "I think it's a wonderful month, and I hadn't heard of any other schools that were doing it. We have some family members that are survivors, and I thought we should show something where the kids can learn about breast cancer, so that everybody can be aware of it."
She talked to the Phoebus administration, and word eventually reached coach Stan Sexton.
"There's two or three kids on the team that have had a relative or friend pass away from breast cancer," Sexton said, "and we just felt like it was a good thing to do, to raise awareness about something."
As his players and their classmates spread the word around school, Phoebus officials called their next football rival. Menchville decided to get its own word out.
"A lot of people have been affected by breast cancer," said Monarch football coach John Byron, "either a family member has had it or you know somebody that it's happened to, and we just felt like this could get people talking about it, and eventually they could raise some funds and find a cure for this terrible disease."
Ron Johnson's one of the millions with a personal reason for that achievement.
"It was tough, but we stuck together and made it through," said Phoebus' quarterback coach, whose mother beat breast cancer nine years ago. "My heart goes out to everybody who's fighting it. I'm excited and thankful that we're a country that can come together and recognize that this is a problem, and we're helping each other with it."
As the Phantoms celebrated their Homecoming game on Thursday with a 63-7 win (Chaz, a pink towel hanging from his waist, ran for a touchdown in the victory), many alumni came to get re-acquainted with their old stomping grounds, and re-discover a few memories.
"Long before she discovered it, she always had problems with lumps, so we always knew she could possibly get it, but when it happened, it was still a shocker," said 1978 class member Alicia Johns, whose mother was diagnosed about 25 years ago.
Fortunately, a mastectomy took care of her mother's illness quickly, but no one will ever forget it, Johns continued.
"It's been a long time now that she's been a survivor," she said, "but she's constantly going to the doctor to make sure nothing shows up."
As she looked at a few years' worth of high school students, alumnus Corintha Robinson remembered her friend Betty Glone, diagnosed with the disease when she wasn't much older than the Phantom's sophomore class.
"She fought it for about four years, and died at 21," Robinson said. "Cancer was in her family, but she was high-spirited; she never let it get her down. It was devastating, and it let me know it can happen to anyone. Before I got of age to be checked out, I was already going in. This is to let the kids know that cancer can get anybody. Everybody's at risk, regardless of age."
