Coach tennis shoes

Coaches in Today's Basketball Game Will Wear Tennis Shoes for Cancer Awareness
Both Alabama and LSU's coaching staffs will be wearing tennis shoes at today's basketball game as participants in the NABC's Coaches vs. Cancer Suits and Sneakers cancer awareness weekend. Coaches and officials around the nation are participating.

TUSCALOOSA ?? When the University of Alabama men’s basketball team plays LSU today, the Crimson Tide’s coaches as well as the LSU coaches will be wearing tennis shoes with their suits as part of the National Basketball Coaches’ Association’s Coaches vs. Cancer Suits and Sneakers awareness weekend. Coaches from all divisions in the NCAA are participating in the February 1-3 event.

Even the game’s officials are expected to take part as 3, 000 blue whistles were shipped to referees around the nation in their “Calling for a Cure” campaign.

The idea is to help raise awareness among basketball audiences about the fight against cancer and the importance that nutrition and physical activity plays in reducing people’s risk of the disease as the American Cancer Society estimates that approximately one-third of cancer deaths could be prevented with proper diet and exercise.

Mark Gottfried and his Tide coaching staff have participated in this event as long as the NABC has been sponsoring it. The Tide has a special interest in the cause, having been greatly affected by the disease. While he was on Gottfried’s coaching staff, former Tide assistant coach Robert Scott was diagnosed with stomach cancer in the fall of 2005 and passed away on May 9, 2006. Scott’s diagnosis came nearly exactly a year after Kermit Koenig, who had been an assistant on David Hobbs’ Alabama staff and was working for the Athletic Department to establish the TIDE PRIDE for basketball donor program, was battling the disease after a tumor was found on his neck. Koenig passed away in November of 2006. And a couple of months after Scott passed away, Tom Kelsey, also an assistant on Gottfried’s staff at the time, had one of his kidney’s removed when a malignant tumor was found. Happily, Kelsey is now cancer free. He is the head coach at Belhaven College.