If you're a college basketball fan, you know it is heavy recruitment season. University coaches are flying around the country to scout out players for next season's teams. Yet, last week four Division I NCAA basketball coaches took a time out from their busy schedules to come to Washington, D.C. and advocate on behalf of cancer patients everywhere as part of ACS CAN's Coaches vs. Cancer Capitol Hill rally. University of Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery, Rutgers University Coach Mike Rice, University of Colorado Coach Tad Boyle and George Mason University Coach Paul Hewitt put rivalries aside last week to team up with cancer advocates to urge Congress to protect federal funding for cancer research and prevention programs. They were joined by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) across the street from the U.S. Capitol building.
The lawmakers spoke to the need for the fight against cancer to be a top national priority with our lawmakers. Through protecting funding for cancer research at NIH and NCI, protecting funding for cancer prevention and screening programs at the CDC and through the Prevention and Public Health Fund and by supporting legislation that will expand access to palliative care that improves the quality of life of cancer patients, these lawmakers recognize every member of Congress can make a serious impact on this disease.
Like most of us, each coach had a special connection to cancer. Coach McCaffery spoke about losing both parents to colon cancer. He said he thinks about it every time he's at his son's baseball practice or his daughter's dance recital. He then said he joined Coaches vs. Cancer to make sure all grandparents are around to cheer on their grandkids.
Coach Mike Rice told a story about watching his son play video games in a hospital room with his best friend who had just received a leukemia diagnosis at age 14. Rice joined Coaches vs. Cancer so his son's friend, and all kids facing leukemia, could have more days to play outside.
Coaches vs. Cancer is a nationwide collaboration between the American Cancer Society and the National Association of Basketball Coaches that includes more than 2,000 Division I, II and III college basketball coaches who have made a commitment to beat cancer, raising nearly $50 million since the program's inception to fund cancer research.
The Coaches vs. Cancer Capitol Hill rally was part of ACS CAN's annual Leadership Summit and Lobby Day, an event held in Washington, D.C. with more than 600 hundred cancer patients, survivors, their loved ones and ACS CAN staff partners. Together, everyone at Lobby Day helped to make a difference in the fight against cancer.
Mariah Forster Olson, an ACS CAN Ambassador Constituent Team Lead (ACT Lead), traveled to Washington, D.C. this week to share her story as a childhood cancer survivor and to advocate on behalf of other patients and survivors during the 2019 Childhood Cancer Action Days.