An Honorable Tribute

This past weekend, a retired coach at the HS I graduated from passed away after a courageous 15-year-long battle with breast cancer. This lady was a long-time coach for our HS, primarily Varsity Field Hockey and Varsity Softball, in which I worked under her as a scorekeeper/statperson my Senior year of HS. Coach was a great personality and a truly genuine soul in today's world, and one from which I learned a lot about softball and (later, in reflection) coaching through observation. Years after she retired, she could always be found cheering on her (former) FH and softball teams, including my summer travel team (though she did not coach a single girl on that team, she supported both mine and the girls' efforts - something I value(d) tremendously).

Thinking out loud earlier this week, I would like to do some kind of tribute in memory of this coach during the course of my summer season coming up, but I'm not sure of good ideas that would do this justice. My team does a LOT of fundraising just to be able to support the team for that season, so I'm iffy on fundraising unless it's something we could safely/satisfactorily pull off - if we did a fundraiser, I could see it being a donation to ACS (or something similar), but I was curious of ideas from the rest of the DFP family as to how we could properly make a contribution/difference as a team in Coach's memory. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Sounds like a great champion of the game and for coaching. Lord knows we can always use more positive role models and it's always sad when we lose ours. I think it's great that you want to do something to pay tribute.

Maybe for the season you can memorialize her with either a patch for the uniforms to be worn all season. You can have the breast cancer pink ribbon on it with her name. Something less costly could be to just wear pink ribbons or socks all season.

Some tournaments will be breast cancer awareness themed. I've been to some where survivors are recognized at the start of the tournament and sadly, some are recognized after having lost a battle. Perhaps that would be a great opportunity to have her recognized and maybe say a few words as to her legacy of coaching.

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possibly they could name either the softball or FH field for her? not certain if the school administration will allow it, but might be worth asking.

What about creating a team award in honor of this coach? It could be given at the end of the season to the girl who most exemplifies the spirit of the coach. Give her a plaque/medal/t-shirt/headband (or any sort of physical award) and then make a small donation in the girl's name to a breast cancer charity.

My team does a t-shirt fundraiser (started last year) where we had a logo for the team and a saying on the reverse side. I'm considering putting a pink ribbon with coach's initials (MAB) across the ribbon. I also like the idea of doing the pink socks all season. I am looking though more for something COMPLETELY separate from the fundraising the team does for its funds for the year. Something we can clearly say, "This is 100% a fundraiser for this memorial/tribute and not to increase our team's funds whatsoever". I've thought about something like setting a goal/incentive ("Raise $1,000 and coach will shave his head") type of ploy, or where we can make it known we are doing this as a tribute to this coach without adding to our own pockets.

We do enough fundraising separately - we want this to be all about this coach and in honor of her.

Lightning said:

What about creating a team award in honor of this coach? It could be given at the end of the season to the girl who most exemplifies the spirit of the coach. Give her a plaque/medal/t-shirt/headband (or any sort of physical award) and then make a small donation in the girl's name to a breast cancer charity.

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I like this one a lot

One idea a friend of mine suggested to me earlier today would be a season-long campaign called "Striking Out Cancer". We reach out to area individuals/business, asking them to provide their own chosen donation for each strikeout the team generates during the season (e.g. $2, $5, etc.) Then after the season is over, we go to these businesses to obtain the funds, combine them together, and donate on behalf of the team in Coach's name/memory. It puts the responsibility on us as a team to perform - the better we do, the more we raise, and should easily motivate the team to perform its best for a great cause.

I'm only worried about this because we solicit donations for advertising from area businesses as part of our TEAM fundraising. Depending on when in the season we do this could make a difference though. Most community businesses are good for events like this, especially if we promote it properly.