The boys’ basketball teams donated the proceeds from Friday’s senior night t-shirts to breast cancer research. The scoreboard graphic on the front of the shirts, which reads 50-11, is in honor of Junior Varsity Head Coach Steve Moore’s sister Veronica, who passed away from breast cancer last summer.
“It’s just like a saying she used to always say,” Moore said. “Instead of just saying ‘Oh, you missed five calls,’ she would just kinda exaggerate it a little bit and say ‘You’ve got 5011 calls’ or ‘You’ve got 5011 pairs of shoes’ or ‘You made 5011 shots,’ or something like that. It’s just one of our sayings.”
Team manager Eddie Mack ’17 said that the team began formulating the idea shortly after Veronica Moore’s passing.
“We talked about it as a team and decided that we were going to do it and that we’d wait until it was closer to the last game of the season,” Mack said. “But, you know, it happened and we’re all thrilled with how it turned out.”
In addition to the shirts, many of the senior players also wore pink to support breast cancer awareness.
“Initially we found out over social media and the team was shocked by the whole thing,” forward Ray Mueller ‘17 said. “We really do feel like a family so when this happened we felt as though we had lost someone too. The team just tried our best to help him through a tough time, knowing he would’ve done the same for any of us.”
The full story was revealed to the Taper Gym crowd at the end of the first quarter during the Wolverines’ come-from-behind 63-56 victory over Chaminade.
“This is what a family means, and stuff like this is what keeps us going,” Moore said. “It kind of translated into the win, it’s a family-oriented team, and that’s what it’s about.”
While this year’s fundraiser was connected directly to Veronica Moore, Mack said that he hopes the event can continue on in the future.
“Obviously, breast cancer is something affects us all,” Mack said. “We all have mothers sisters, friends who are girls, whatever. I think that it very well could be something that they continue to go on with.”
