A decade of thinking pink

Basic color theory says that blue and white seldom make pink. It’s one of those immutable laws of nature, like lightning always strikes twice or all good things must come to an end.

Sunday, hundreds of breast cancer survivors and their families will gather at the Bryce Jordan Center to celebrate a decade’s worth of exceptions to at least two out of three of those rules.

The 10th annual Pennsylvania Pink Zone game will pit the Penn State Lady Lions against the University of Michigan Wolverines, perhaps the only game of the year where the stands aren’t flush with the school’s flagship colors.

Instead, spectators will be given a rare opportunity to see the world through rose-colored glasses, a sea of pink T-shirts that have become synonymous with the fight against breast cancer and a message of hope to families struggling under the weight of a life-changing diagnosis.

A lot can happen in 10 years. Coaches come and go. Team rosters change. Lives begin, end and start again.

One thing remains — another hard and fast rule of the universe that probably pertains more to fledgling nonprofits than it does to acrylic paints — you can’t make pink without a little bit of green.

Origins

This particular shade of emerald boasted a $5,000 price tag courtesy of the Big Ten Conference, a SuperFan campaign that was designed to boost attendance for women’s basketball games.

There was a catch — because in lieu of any actual security measures there is always a catch — which was that then-coach Rene Portland and other members of the Lady Lions organization first had to come up with a proposal for how to use the funds to accomplish such an ambitious goal.

They eventually decided that they wanted to use one of the games from the upcoming season as a platform to honor the survivors of breast cancer.

The money from the Big Ten Conference would be used in part to purchase pink-tinted uniforms for the occasion, with an even darker shade prepared for the visiting Wisconsin Badgers.

“This is unheard of. Nobody changed uniform colors,” Jenn James, assistant athletic director at Penn State, said.

It took some time for the Badgers to adjust to the idea. They would already be strangers in a strange land — did they really have to do it while dressed from head to toe in the color of bubblegum?

Finally, a compromise was reached, one that required special permission from the NCAA. The home team would be allowed to wear the darker uniforms while the Badgers would sport the white jerseys in all their white-tinted glory.

The rest of the arrangements quickly fell into place. Fans would be able to purchase pink T-shirts through the Penn State student bookstore and breast cancer advocacy groups would help spread the word among survivors.

“We were so excited and so passionate about it,” James said.

Survivor Cheryl Delsite heard about the game through the PA Breast Cancer Coalition.

A resident of Sunbury, Delsite received her diagnosis when she was 29 years old, and she had been volunteering with the PBCC ever since they helped her through some issues with her insurance.

At halftime, she joined other survivors on the court, where they made the shape of a ribbon.

“I think there were maybe 30 or 40 of us there. There wasn’t a very big crowd to begin with,” Delsite said.

Building momentum

It was nearly five years later and the Pennsylvania Pink Zone had been officially incorporated into a nonprofit.

The move was a testament to just how far the game had come in half a decade.

Attendance numbers among survivors had been swelling and sizable donations were being made to organizations like The Susan G. Komen foundation.

Which brings us, once again, to the catch.

“It was more of a year-round planning for one single game,” James said.

Breast cancer awareness had also been steadily increasing, especially within the women’s basketball community. Kay Yow, the former coach of the North Carolina State University Wolfpack and a founding member of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association, had succumbed to the disease in 2009.

The spirit was willing, but the Lady Lions needed somebody who could oversee the Pennsylvania Pink Zone full time. Miriam Powell came onboard as the nonprofit’s executive director.

Powell was immediately impressed by the scope of the operation that she had inherited.

“I had no idea how many moving parts there were to the game itself,” Powell said.

That didn’t stop her from wanting more.

Fullington Trailways had already begun offering free rides to the Bryce Jordan Center for survivors and three guests. Powell worked on growing other key partnerships with establishments like The Allen Street Grill and Bill Pickle’s Tap Room.

When donations began to plateau, Mimi Barash Coppersmith, who has served as an advisory board member for the Palmer Museum of Art and as president of the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, suggested getting the money into the hands of local resources like the Mount Nittany Medical Center or Penn State Hershey Cancer Institute.

“We saw a really big increase in financial donations,” Powell said.

It helped that the Pink Zone was diversifying its outreach, offering several smaller fundraisers in addition to the annual basketball game.

Little Black Dress Goes Pink is held during Breast Cancer Awareness Month every October, allowing breast cancer survivors to model the latest in fashion while still benefiting the cause.

“It’s almost like in some ways it’s become a well-oiled machine,” Powell said.

Impact

A nice set of wheels goes a long way — in this case literally.

The PBCC has a pink van that they drive all around the state to different health fairs and other related events.

Emblazoned on the side of the van is the Nittany Lion logo, a proud reminder that the vehicle is maintained with the help of the Pennsylvania Pink Zone.

Funds donated from Pink Zone also help PBCC finance scholarships for survivors to attend its annual conference in Harrisburg, where they can network and listen to talks by medical experts.

“They leave the conference every year knowing they’re not alone,” Natalie Kopp, communications director for the PBCC, said.

Camaraderie is a recurring theme when talking to people about the Pink Zone. Strength in numbers is a real thing to these people, and they aren’t referring to the money.

Mary McCahan is an administrative support assistant with women’s basketball at Penn State. For the past 15 years, she has also been a breast cancer survivor.

McCahan was diagnosed early but was still terrified. She wanted to see her children grow up.

“I was really uneducated as far as it comes to breast cancer,” McCahan said.

She was new to the process then, like so many of the survivors who step onto the court each year during halftime. It’s easy to tell who is who. Each of them is given a card to hold up that accounts for every second that’s elapsed since their initial diagnosis.

“We’ve had people put one day, one week, one month,” McCahan said.

During the 2009 Pink Zone game, McCahan was one of the many survivors who ran out onto the floor through a tunnel of friends and family members. She loves being down on the court, surrounded by women who are a reminder that breast cancer doesn’t have to be a death sentence.

It’s important to remember that — because the distance between the hardwood and bleachers isn’t as far as it seems.

“I can’t help but think about who might be sitting up there who may be diagnosed, “ McCahan said.

The future

It’s about a one-hour drive from Sunbury to State College.

Delsite has made the drive at least 10 times during the past decade, usually in the company of her daughter. She’s celebrating 25 years as a breast cancer survivor, so why start missing games now?

This time Delsite will be joined by the friends and family of her breast cancer support group, a traveling caravan that will total almost 40 people. It’s a drop in the bucket of nearly 700 survivors who now attend each year.

Like McCahan, she enjoys seeing multiple generations of breast cancer survivors gathered all in one place. It reminds her of all the progress that has been made, even with so many steps left on the road.

“There’s been great strides in my 25 years,” Delsite said.

At the moment, the only thing clear about the Pink Zone’s future is that it has one. Powell is preparing to move on to other opportunities, but thinks that some new blood might be just what is needed to push the nonprofit onward and upward.

“I think that now is the perfect time for change for Pink Zone,” Powell said.

This story was originally published January 16, 2016 at 12:55 AM with the headline "A decade of thinking pink."