The game of basketball and love for helping a deserving member of the Estevan community will come together at the Estevan Comprehensive School (ECS) Elecs senior girls basketball team's sixth annual Shoot for a Cure Pink Tournament this weekend.
The Elecs are attempting to raise $3,000 leading up to and during the tournament for two-year-old Presley Marshall, who has Philadelphia Chromosome Acute Leukemia. In the five previous Elecs' Pink Tournaments, the team has raised a total of $11,000 for members of the community diagnosed with cancer.
Jessie Smoliak, head coach of the Elecs senior girls team, said this weekend's competition is also Elecs senior players Tess Lindquist, Avery Dunbar and Teanna Michel's last home tournament, and will be their's and the other teams' last game action before playoffs begin. She said those aspects of the weekend come on top of the important point of giving back that the tournament embodies.
“I'm not only trying to teach my kids about basketball, but also giving back,” said Smoliak. “I think that's a huge characteristic that a lot of teenagers can learn from and this is what teaches them. They see where the money is going to and how it is helping somebody in our community.”
Smoliak said seven of the eight participating teams at the tournament have been invited to wear their pink uniforms in the games, with Moose Jaw's Peacock Collegiate being the only school involved that does not currently have pink uniforms. She said an important feature of the Pink Tournament is a paying-it-forward principle meaning teams that host a Pink Tournament use some of the money they raise to buy pink uniforms for another school.
“It started with Al Wandler, the Assiniboia coach, giving it on to Fillmore,” she said. “So when you get that pink uniform you give on to another team. We did it for two teams (Weyburn Comprehensive School and Moose Jaw Central) just because we're a bigger area and this is our sixth year of doing it. Now that we've gave on to two teams we really want to focus on helping our community members, so anybody in need.”
Wandler said the paying-it-forward idea began in their second year of hosting a Pink Tournament when he approached their School Representative Council (SRC) about purchasing uniforms for a second school they're close with as a way to create more involvement in the cause and invest in the program. He said ECS and Indian Head seemed so enamoured with the cause they didn't wait to receive a uniform from another school and actually borrowed the Assiniboia Rockets' uniforms for their first Pink Tournaments.
“I think Estevan actually wore them twice,” said Wandler, whose team helps tip off this weekend's action with a 2:45 p.m. game on Friday against the Elecs. “They didn't care about the name that was on the jersey, because it says Rockets on it. They cared about the colour of the jersey and that's really all that's important. So I thought that was pretty cool that they did that.”
Since Wandler first started the Pink Tournament tradition eight years ago when he decided to purchase the pink uniforms after spotting them in a catalog with an idea to start a big Rockets' charity event, the cause has spread to 15 other schools. He said that expansion doesn't surprise him because of the quality of high school coaches out there, but how far the cause spreads is unknown due to the great amount of work involved in hosting a Pink Tournament.
“It's an emotional exhausting roller coaster ride the week prior to it,” he said. “If teams can do it, they do it and if they don't that's fine. We'll just find another one down the line that wants to take this on.”
Smoliak said they are raising money for the cause through donations from community members, a bake sale held last month and many fundraising activities this week at ECS including a hat day, balloon raffle and T-shirt sale. She said the players' moms will also be running a canteen at the tournament with all proceeds going to the cause and former ECS teacher Christa Kurtz has donated a quilt that they'll be raffling off during the weekend.
“It's a competitive tournament and it's really nice right before playoffs because, theoretically, this is when a team should be playing their best,” said Smoliak. “I'm hoping that we get a lot of community help and it's always nice to see (people) come out and support our school teams.”
