Triton Soccer

Former Packers here to raise breast cancer awareness

BY MARK HORNICKEL mhornickel@kenoshanews.com 


    Take a soccer team of 21 girls. At the current rate that breast cancer affects women, three of those girls will be stricken with the disease.

    So this spring, girls playing soccer at high schools throughout Kenosha County and Wisconsin are taking a stand against breast cancer with help from the foundation established by former Green Bay Packer LeRoy Butler.

    Butler appeared Saturday with WSSP Radio personality and former Packer Gary Ellerson and local girls soccer players to announce a special series of games that will help raise money for breast cancer survivors.

    The initiative, called “Go Pink!” will consist of 88 teams playing more than 50 league games and raising funds to award a monetary grant to a recipient from each school.

    “What we need to do is get on top of this disease,” said Ellerson, whose first wife died of breast cancer at age 29, leaving behind the couple’s then 5-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter. “I watched my wife ... go though chemotherapy and radiation treatment. Those things were not fun, and eventually she succumbed to the disease. When LeRoy told me about this, (I said) I am behind this 100 percent, and whatever I can do, I will do.”

    All six of Kenosha County’s girls soccer teams — Bradford, Christian Life, St. Joseph, Tremper, Wilmot and Central — have agreed to participate in the series of league games, which will feature pink soccer balls and accompany a variety of fundraisers to benefit the LeRoy Butler Foundation.

    Tremper coach Todd Hardy said the project has exceeded his expectations. Hardy and Butler first talked of the idea last year, and it gained momentum after Wilmot expressed interest also.

    “I just started calling coaches, and it was amazing to me the number of stories that came to me,” Hardy said. “I called Bill McCabe over at Janesville Craig, which is where I went to high school, and he said to me, ‘Todd, my sister was just diagnosed with breast cancer. We’re in.’ This is such a personal event for a lot of people.”

    Hardy added, “I said, ‘As soon as somebody tells me no, then we’ll cap it and we’ll be done.’ My 73rd phone call, that was my first coach that told me ‘Sorry, we can’t be involved.’”

    Teams from Slinger and Whitefish Bay will kick off the series with a game on March 24. The series also includes the Tremper-Wilmot game on April 24 and the Bradford-Racine Park meeting on April 30.

    Home teams will wear shirts, and visiting teams will wear dark shirts with pink lettering. The shirts are being donated to the schools, which can sell the shirts after games and send their earnings to the foundation.

    Each game also will feature three pink soccer balls. After the games, each team will keep one of the balls, while the third will be raffled. Hardy also said Georgia soccer-ball maker Select Sport has agreed to donate $4 of every ball purchase to an Atlanta hospital for breast cancer work.

    Teams will be selling pink bracelets and pink ribbons. People can enter raffles for an invitation to a tailgate party with Butler next October at Madrigrano Marina Shore in Kenosha. And the Kenosha Fire Department plans to wear pink T-shirts while on duty throughout April in conjunction with the initiative.

    The LeRoy Butler Foundation helps women who need assistance with breast cancer treatment. More information is available online at www.leroybutler.org.

    Butler, who also has four daughters, said he made a pledge to raise awareness about breast cancer after encountering a fan during a game against the San Francisco 49ers in 1998. The female fan was wearing a pink ribbon on her jersey and Butler asked her about it.

    “The game was about to start, and she was giving me all these statistics, and that really scared me,” Butler said. “The San Francisco 49ers, they didn’t scare me. (The woman’s story) kind of scared me. She said she was a survivor, and one out of seven would be diagnosed.”

    Butler said he wanted to partner with soccer teams, in part, because the sport is steadily growing and it encompasses the entire state. He said he hopes to continue the initiative annually, and it could also include girls basketball teams across the state next year.

    The foundation is aiming to raise $90,000 this season.

    “I think one of the nice things about this is that it’s kind of a whole Kenosha thing and a whole Wisconsin thing,” Hardy said. “For such a large amount of people to come together for this event, I think shows you just how progressive and committed the soccer community in Wisconsin is.”

KENOSHA NEWS PHOTO BY KEVIN POIRIER Former Packer LeRoy Butler on Saturday announces the Go Pink! initiative, which will involve girls soccer teams playing games to raise funds for breast cancer causes.