Coaches supporting Think Pink campaign against cancer

If you've been watching any women's college basketball games lately, you've been thinking pink, seeing pink, maybe even wearing pink yourself in the stands.

February is National Cancer Prevention month and many teams around the country use their games this month as an opportunity to support breast cancer awareness and prevention.

Teams wear pink uniforms, headbands, shoes and socks, programs are printed on pink paper, even pink whistles are used by officials.

One of the most well-known tie-ins with the "Think Pink" games is the Kay Yow Foundation. Yow, a longtime women's basketball coach at North Carolina State, died of breast cancer in 2009.

Yow took N.C. State to a Final Four in 1998 and now has the court at North Carolina State, along with a national coach of the year award, named for her. Yow was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1987 and faced three bouts with the disease. She created the Kay Yow Cancer Fund two years before her death. Since 2007, the Kay Yow Cancer Fund has raised $5.18 million for research.

College coaches across the country are looking to add significantly to that bottom line.

Sherri Coale, the head women's basketball coach at Oklahoma and the president of the Kay Yow Cancer Fund board of directors, sent a letter to every women's college basketball coach in America a few weeks ago. She issued a hefty challenge, asking all 331 Division I coaches to donate $1,000 to Kay Yow and every Division II, Division III and junior college coach to donate $500.

The goal is for women's college basketball coaches to donate $500,000 this year to the Kay Yow Cancer Fund.

"While we all champion the Kay Yow Cancer Fund via our pink uniforms and pink promotions for our designated games during the Play4Kay window this month, this year we want to do more," Coale wrote. "As a body of coaches, we have an amazing opportunity to take a bold stand. I can think of nothing more perfectly in line with the purity of Coach Yow's vision than $500,000 from coaches' pockets going straight to the cancer fight."

If every Division I coach contributes, the goal is more than halfway met. Coale suggested the donations could come from the head coach, assistants or every staff member in their program.

"I think it's a very good goal, a very reasonable goal," DePaul women's basketball coach Doug Bruno said.

Bruno says he was close to Yow, and that his wife Patty also considered Yow a good friend. In the mid-1990s, Yow came to Chicago to speak at a banquet for the top high school players. Bruno says he will never forget that speech.

"It was just very inspirational because Kay was right in the middle of her battle with cancer and she was talking about how she was fighting it," Bruno said. "She told the kids that she couldn't control the cancer but that she could control her attitude and she was going to be positive and fight it as hard as she could. It was a great message and I just support everything about the Kay You Cancer Fund. It means a lot to me."

The coaches are hoping to be able to announce on Monday's "Big Monday" game on ESPN that they met their goal.

To donate to the Kay You Cancer Fund, visit www.kayyow.com.

Follow Patricia on Twitter @babcockmcgraw and contact her by email at pbabcock@dailyherald.com