Volley for the Cure is an idea worth supporting
High school sports teams and athletes play games virtually every night of the week. One team wins, one team loses - unless, of course, there's a tie.
We tend to shape many things about our lives around how our favorite teams fare in the win-loss column.
What we lose track of, though, is how sports can also teach us life lessons.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and for most of this month, many schools around the state have been holding Volley for the Cure events - girls volleyball matches in which the participating schools dress in pink and raise funds for breast cancer research.
One of the final events of the season will be tonight at Burlington Central when the Rockets host neighboring rival Hampshire. And while that match will also settle the Big Northern East conference championship, the event will also raise money for breast cancer research.
Whether you like volleyball or not, or care about Burlington Central or Hampshire or not, that in itself should be enough reason to come out and buy a ticket and participate in the activities.
"I am not sure that I've seen an initiative grow as quickly or have such a powerful affect as the Volley for the Cure has," said IHSA Assistant Executive Director Sue Hinrichsen recently. "The outpouring of support for this event that we have seen from players, parents, students, administrators, schools and communities can only be described as remarkable."
The IHSA first backed the Volley for the Cure effort a year ago when grass roots matches in Ohio received attention from other coaches and began to spread around the country.
St. Edward coach Jaime Dovichi is from Ohio and her dad coaches there. Dovichi was one of the first to introduce Volley for the Cure to the Fox Valley area.
In 2008, IHSA schools held 131 Volley for the Cure matches that raised over $150,000 for the Susan G. Komen Foundation, which has Illinois branches in Bloomington, Chicago, Decatur and Peoria.
This season, there have been 126 Volley for the Cure matches and despite the fewer number of overall matches, more teams were actually involved this year as an offseason provision limited each school to one Volley for the Cure match per season.
"There are so many great stories and great moments that have come out of these games," Hinrichsen said. "I received an e-mail from O'Fallon High School saying the expected to surpass their goal of raising $5,000. It is great for the cause and even better for the kids to be involved in community efforts to give back."
And it should be our obligation to help give back as well. If you can't support breast cancer research by attending a designated high school event in person, log on to either ww5.komen.org or to thebreastcancersite.com. There are many ways to contribute on either site.
One other local event will take place Oct. 27 when Judson University hosts St. Xavier in what Judson is calling a Dig Pink match. All the proceeds from that even will also go to the Komen Foundation.
Watch out for this kid: It's almost high school bowling season and here's a name to remember in the coming months - Charlie Viviano. Charlie is a 17-year-old senior at South Elgin who last weekend rolled an 835 series in a youth league at Woodview Lanes in Elgin. He had games of 280, 300, and 255. Viviano is a returning bowler for the Storm, which qualified for the IHSA state bowling finals last year in the program's first year of existence.
"I've known Charlie for almost a year," said South Elgin coach T.A. Wierschke via e-mail. "I have seen him flourish from a kid that likes to bowl to a calm, cool competitor on the lanes. I give a lot of credit to his family and the friends he surrounds himself with."
Around the Valley: As we roll into the final week of football's regular season, we see some really important games coming up on Friday night, one of those nights it would be nice to have video feeds on all of them. Tops on the docket is the South Elgin at Larkin matchup at Memorial Field. Not only does South Elgin coach Dale Schabert come back to Memorial to coach against his alma mater and the school he toiled at for 11 years for the first time, the Storm still have an outside shot at tying for the Upstate Eight championship. They'll need help - if St. Charles East beats rival North in Friday, the UEC title belongs to the Saints. But if North wins, the conference could technically end in a tie. And if Bartlett would knock off Lake Park, things would get even more interesting. But more important to South Elgin is that with a win, the Storm will finish 7-2 and with the most playoff points of any school in Class 7A, there could be a Week 10 game at Millennium Field.
Meanwhile, on Elgin's west side, the voices of Larkin coach Matt Gehrig and St. Edward boss Mike Rolando, who played at Larkin, are ringing loudly with one word - SIX. The Royals and Green Wave need to win this weekend to get in the playoffs as their odds of having enough playoff points to sneak in at 5-4 look to be slim and none.
St. Edward hosts Wheaton Academy at Greg True Field Friday night, which means that for the first time since I can remember, and the memory is still pretty good, there are two huge football games in Elgin on Week 9.
Huntley also has a big home game Friday night with Jacobs. If the Red Raiders win they finish 5-4 and they should have enough points to get in.
Then, on Saturday night, it's pairings night - the IHSA's equivilant to Selection Sunday in NCAA basketball.
We'll be there with all the complete coverage for you, both in Elgin's only Saturday daily newspaper, and on the Internet at football.dailyherald.com. Log on often for updates and make sure you bookmark the site Saturday night to check out all the pairings as well as how Daily Herald area coaches look at their first-round matchups.
jradtke@dailyherald.com