University of Southern Mississippi Athletics
Women's Basketball Getting Ready For `Think Pink' Weekend
2/5/2008 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Feb. 5, 2008
HATTIESBURG, Miss. - The Southern Miss women's basketball team will be donning pink for this week's games against Memphis on Thursday and UAB on Saturday, while participating in the Women's Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) "Think Pink" initiative. The team will be outfitted in white jerseys with pink numbers outlined in black, have pink shoe strings and pink head bands.
The WBCA's "Think Pink" initiative is a global, unified effort for the WBCA's nation of coaches to assist in raising breast cancer awareness on the court, across campuses, in the communities and beyond. The week set aside for this year's initiative was Feb. 8-17.
The sponsors for this weekend games include the Hattiesburg Clinic, The Plastic Surgery Center, The Print Shop, The Wings and the support group Waiting for a Cure.
The Lady Eagles' special jerseys will be auctioned off at the conclusion of the UAB game, Saturday, in a live auction with Southern Miss graduate and screen actor, Gary Grubbs, as the auctioneer. The minimum bid on each jersey is $100 and all proceeds will go to `Waiting for a Cure.' Anyone is welcomed to bid on any of the jerseys.
The team also will have pink shooting shirts for the team and head bands, and t-shirts will be given to the band, cheerleaders, dancers and scorers' table crew. Local breast cancer survivors will be special guests of the athletic department. The group will be wearing a special pink t-shirt and have courtside seating.
"Every women's basketball program in nation, no matter what level, NCAA Division I, II, III, NAIA and Junior College, are participating in the "Think Pink" initiative," senior associate athletics director Sonya Varnell said. "This is something to try and bring awareness to beast cancer. October is the traditional month for Breast Cancer Awareness, but we are not playing basketball then. We believe women's basketball is the premier women's sport in which everyone knows about it and we want to use basketball as a means to promote this awareness."
Admission for these games will be $2, for those wearing pink, with $1 going to the athletic department and the other $1 will go to `Waiting for a Cure.' There will be plenty of other give-a-ways as well. The other give-a-ways include cheer cards and pink rally towels given to the first 500 fans each game, given by Conference USA. In conjunction with the "Think Pink" weekend, Southern Miss will be celebrating National Girls and Women in Sports Day on Thursday and the first 100 girls will be receive an Aéropostale bag upon admission.
Fans are encouraged to come out and help the Lady Eagle basketball team raise the most money of any Conference USA team and in the state of Mississippi to donate to cancer research.
