Tomorrow night, Saturday, the University of Iowa women’s volleyball team will host the University of Wisconsin on the floor – and the match will also be “Attacking Breast Cancer” as the team plays for breast cancer research funding. Head volleyball coach Cindy Fredrick talks about tomorrow’s event and how you can get involved:
Where did the idea of hosting a game to attack breast cancer come from?
It started when I was at Washington State and we got this going there where we had “Attacking Breast Cancer” and we called it A B C. It was more to help some of our women who were survivors of breast cancer, to help with some of their expenses. That’s how it got started and it really picked up across the country with about 60 universities doing a program called Dig for the Cure, which is involved with Susan G. Komen. Our team, decided we wanted to keep the money local, so we are giving all of our proceeds to the Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center Breast Cancer Research.
How did the players respond to the idea when you first mentioned it to them?
They were really excited about it. I think what’s really exceptional about the student athletes at The University of Iowa—they are all very excited about getting involved in these kinds of things. They love going over to the hospital and helping people. They like helping out with the Ronald McDonald House. I think all of our athletes are that way, so it’s a way for them to give back to the community. We always encourage our young women to say that it is women helping women. That’s really important to all of our programs.
What will players do tomorrow evening in recognition of breast cancer awareness?
They’re raising money on their own, as well, and taking donations for anybody that wants to give money to the Holden Cancer Research. They can make those checks out to Holden Cancer Research and send them over to:
UI Foundation
Levitt Center for University Advancement
One West Park Rd.
PO Box 4550
Iowa City, IA 52240
They’re doing a lot of things, like wearing pink warm-up shirts instead of their normal black and gold shirts. They’ll be wearing pink socks. The court will be outlined in pink. Even the referees will be using pink whistles. The first 500 people through the doors get pink rally towels. I think we have a really great addition to our couching staff that night as Dr. Sally Mason will be our guest coach. And Dr. Mason will be wearing pink, also.
Any special reason why junior Emily Hiza will be wearing a pink jersey during the match?
Yes there is. She’s the libero and the libero always wears the different color shirts than everybody else because her position is that she can only play defense and she’s not allowed to jump and hit the ball or attack the ball from the 10 foot line. So rather than wearing a different colored jersey from our players, she’ll be wearing the pink jersey all throughout the match. And then that jersey is being auctioned on the Hawkeye auction site right now.
Can fans also participate in this event? How?
As long as they’re wearing pink, anything pink. If they’re wearing pink shirts, pink whatever they’re wearing that’s pink, they’ll get involved. They can get a raffle ticket and there will be prizes given out throughout the match.
Fans should attend to watch a good game. Is the UI Athletic Department also donating money for cancer research dependent upon the number of fans?
Absolutely, I think this is really a great thing that the Athletic Department is doing. The University of Iowa Athletic Department will donate $1 to the Holden Cancer Center for every fan over 1,000 in attendance. So we’d like to fill north Carver up to – we want at least 3,000 people there. So we’d like to see this donation go up from the Athletic Department to about $2,000.
This is the first year for this event. Do you have a goal in mind that you’d like to raise for cancer research?
I think it’s been fantastic. We’ve gotten a lot of help from all the people at the Holden Cancer Research. Dan Fischer and Margo Jerrick have really been very helpful in getting this thing organized. And our marketing department at the University in the Athletic Department has been fantastic with helping us get everything organized.
This is, I guess, my “baby,” but everybody has helped so much with everything. Katie McGuine, my director of operations, has been really instrumental in getting this thing going for me, too. For all of us, it’s a labor of love and we know how much it affects the women across the country; and not just the women, but their families, the men in their lives, and their children. And so it’s a very important thing for all of us.
Do you have an overall goal for the money raised from the team and all of the other events?
The more the better. If we can come up with at least $3,000, we’d be just really thrilled with that.
What time do the doors open tomorrow night?
Well, you don’t need a ticket on Saturday night. It’s going to be free admission and I think that’s the great part. You can go to the Iowa football game and then come on over to the volleyball match that night. You’ll see two really good teams – Wisconsin is ranked fifth in the country, so you’ll see some great volleyball on top of everything else. The doors should open around 5:30 p.m. or 5:45 p.m. So come on in wearing your pink!
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