The Coles Express NBL1 will support Breast Cancer Network Australia (BCNA) in this weekend’s PLAY4BCNA Pink Round.
“The PLAY4BCNA Pink Round is one of the most significant weekends on the league’s calendar,” NBL1 General Manager Dean Anglin said.
“We’ve held PLAY4BCNA Pink Round’s every year since 2019, they are always a tremendous success, with the entire NBL1 community rallying behind such an important and meaningful cause.”
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Not only has this cause affected some players, personnel and staff personally, but some clubs have been already on the front foot about this in the past decade. The Casey Cavaliers are an example of one that have been a big purveyor of this round before it even became league wide, starting way back in 2013 in the Big V competition.
Marketing and Communications Manager Ash Szalek has seen the impact breast cancer awareness can have, on a club like his. For just under a decade before the NBL1 Pink Round, they ran the “Ballin for Breast Cancer” match.
“We’ve been running the Ballin for Breast Cancer round through the BCNA since 2013. We had a couple of players with their mums that were affected by breast cancer so we took it on ourselves as a club to raise funds for the cause,” Szalek shared with The Pick and Roll.
“We sold pink T-shirts, socks and dressed up in all sorts of pink-related things like fairy wings and tutus – it engaged so much with the community and helped us to have sold out crowds annually.”
Szalek has observed the rise of the Pink Round. As one of the original ball clubs that has raised more than $50,000 over the past decade, he’s pleased to see it all continue for everyone. “It provides all teams that extra motivation when the event is bigger than the game, and for this year’s round we are hoping to fill the stadium with close to a thousand as well as fundraising just as much as we’ve done in the past – if not more.”
Suited in their ‘Miami Heat Vice’ style uniforms once again, the Cavaliers will take their pink round as an opportunity to continue to raise awareness for the public.
