Hour of Power Against Cancer

Nov. 10

As student-athletes, all consumed in our chaotic, time-managed, and day-to-day routines on campus, we seem to dwell on the negatives of a poor exam or bad practice. We are so focused on the fast-paced lifestyle of college that it takes a story like this to really make us slow down and think about how lucky we are. It is unfortunate that the prevalence of cancer, in one way or another, has some effect on everyone. Whether it is a family member, a friend, a colleague, or even just an acquaintance, we all know somebody who has suffered from this horrible disease. In just my immediate family, my grandfather fought with bouts of brain cancer for more than a decade and my aunt fought and beat breast cancer. Luckily, the chances of beating and surviving many cancers are increasing every single day. Stories like these help us understand the importance of all the research being done in the hope to discover cancerous pathways and the research in understanding how to attack them.

On Thursday, November 6th at 5 p.m., our team participated in the Ted Mullin “Leave it in the Pool Hour of Power.” The event is held in memory of Ted Mullin, a former swimmer at Carleton College in Minnesota who lost a battle to sarcoma, a rare soft-tissue cancer, in 2006. Since then, Carleton hosts an annual relay event where participating teams swim continuous relays for an entire hour at an all-out effort. It is the hopes in coordinating this event that not only will it raise awareness of cancer on campus but build team spirit as well. At least 88 teams (75 colleges and universities) completed this event, including our UAA rivals at the University of Chicago, where the donations from this event are used as seed funding for the University of Chicago pediatric sarcoma research program.

We appreciate all the support we received from the campus community on Thursday. Whether you donated at our table in the University Center or simply just asked about the event, it is a testament to the strength and togetherness of a campus like this and the support that can be given to each other. For this being the first year the swimming and diving program at Carnegie Mellon has attempted this event, we were extremely impressed with the response campus-wide. The most important things to come out of this event remain the sense of awareness and community spirit. For many types of this disease, awareness is the best chance of defeating it. Events like this not only raise money for research in the field but they bring a community together. For the entire day, our team unified, not in the hope to defeat another team during a meet, but to do our parts in helping an extraordinary effort across the country for a common goal. We look forward to expanding our efforts on campus next year and have already begun the planning process. Cancer remains a difficult battle. Events like the Ted Mullin “Leave it in the Pool Hour of Power” allow us to take one step closer to finding a way of conquering this disease.