It’s another home football game as the Mustang players get ready to play against Corona on a cool, windy Friday night. Students, parents, staff, members of the community fill the stands of the stadium in support of their defending team, whose performance this season was massively better than before. But along with this sense of Roosevelt pride, there’s something significant and different about this football game that is surprisingly affectionate and has been part of a trend with sports games of the past month: the color pink as this football game was referred to as the “Pink-Out” game by the majority of students on campus before it happened.

That the pink shirts worn by the fans of the home team, the pink decorations found across the stadium, the socks worn by the players and the ribbons scattered around are more than just a trend and a word that describes a common color people like.

Indeed, they do. That pink color was meant to represent as a symbol of the strength many men and women,  1 in 8 of them in the U.S according to breastcancer.org, have to combat a serious disease we refer to today as breast cancer, in which cells in the breast begin to grow out of control, resulting in cancerous tumors that can eventually spread around distant areas, according to the American Cancer Society.

October is the month designated for Breast Cancer Awareness, with emphasis put on educating Americans yearly on the experience of having such a cancer in addition to spotlighting the serious disease.

Given that sports games bring communities together, they are reasonable venues to raise awareness for such things as breast cancer.

For girls volleyball, the name of their sports game & event was “Dig-Pink” and while the spectacle of the game energized the hundreds of people in the stands of the high school’s gym to cheer on either Roosevelt’s and King’s girls’ varsity teams that played against each other, there was an emotional and heartfelt aspect that contributed that excitement before it even began that had something to do with the meaning of the pink color.

The line-up of these young varsity volleyball players were introduced out to the crowd by their head coach, Patricia Zarate, who gave each one of them a rose to dedicate to loved ones who were struggling with, had or passed away from breast cancer, the people in their lives that they were playing for.

Zarate, who herself is a breast cancer survivor, has commented on the strength her girls have, especially how they came together to support her when she was diagnosed with the disease and coping with it.

During the club practices with her group of kids, she recalls how “rough it was to tell them” about her condition. “I’d tried to make a joke about it, but it wasn’t a joke to them and they cried when I told them” she says in an interview.

“I was like, ‘this is it. If you’re going to cry, cry. Get it over with because I can’t fight if everyone’s crying.'” Zarate wanted her team to be themselves, despite her struggles that helped her.

Zarate believes that while most people with breast cancer think they are alone, they really aren’t. This is most evident when the away team of the Dig Pink game donated $500 to Zarate to pay for an upcoming surgery, showing the universal human condition people have when seeing those in need and stepping in to help.

That’s why in addition to the emphasis of the color pink at the Dig-Pink game, which she says represents empowerment for women suffering from the disease, there was also an important slogan: together we fight, literally what it means. That with those with support, no one has to fight breast cancer alone.

As October comes to an end, so does October Breast Cancer Awareness Month……..though not really. Because the fight continues on for those still carrying on with the disease. And with the awareness of breast cancer in October, through the sports games, the pink color, the stories, they will sure wear their pink with pride. And we will be there to stand by them.