For all of you sports fans out there, I think you’ll agree that Fall is one of the best times of year. While Indianapolis is collectively cringing at the 0-4 record of our beloved Colts, there are plenty of other sports teams, both collegiate and professional, to cheer for. Most of you may have begun to notice your favorite teams breaking out their pink towels, gloves and jerseys this week. October marks National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
One thing is for certain: I did not receive the athletic genes in my family. My younger sister, Claire, definitely did. She is a red-shirt junior on the University of Michigan volleyball team (GO BLUE!) Every year during the first week of October, the University of Michigan athletic department and Michigan sports teams put on a week-long fundraiser to raise money for breast cancer research. At the end of the week, they sport pink jerseys and auction them off to donate the proceeds after the match. The “pink match” is this weekend.
It’s not just her team that participates. College and professional programs nationwide will sport their pink this month in order to raise awareness about a disease that kills approximately 40,000 women in the United States every year. Breast cancer is the second most common cause of death due to cancer behind lung cancer.
Luckily, significant progress has been made in the last few years, and the five-year survival rate for women who have caught this type of cancer early-on is between 81% and 85%. Whether pink is your thing or not, consider sporting the color sometime this month in honor of all the people lost, suffering and currently fighting this disease.
To donate to the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer fund through the American Cancer Society, click here.