PIT NOTES: Saturday, September 01, 2012 / Page 1
GORDON KICKS IT FOR CANCER – From a distance, the scene on the infield grass in Atlanta Motor Speedway’s turn four ballfield looked like any ordinary game of kickball. But get a little closer, and it was easier to tell that this group of NASCAR drivers, wives, media and young kids — many wearing kerchiefs over bald heads, a universal badge of honor for cancer warriors – weren’t assembled for a carefree sporting event.
Instead, this group of 10 courageous young cancer survivors was teaming up with Jeff Gordon’s Children’s Foundation to kick off September’s Childhood Cancer Awareness Month with a “Kick-It” kickball game. Kick-It is a grassroots program founded in 2009 by a 10-year-old with cancer that raises money ($1 million to date) for children’s cancer research by inspiring people across the country to play kickball. Just like a walk or 5k race, participants ask family and friends to sponsor them to play.
Gordon has challenged fans around the country to host as many Kick-It games as possible during this month, and he will match all funds raised.
“This is a devastating disease for not only the children affected but for the families,” said Gordon, whose foundation’s mission is to support children battling cancer by funding programs that improve patients’ quality of life, treatment programs that increase survivorship and pediatric medical research dedicated to finding a cure. “We need to further research to ultimately find a cure. We hope through our Kick-It program we can raise enough funds to reach that goal.”
Saturday at Atlanta Motor Speedway, 10 pediatric cancer patients and survivors from the Aflac Cancer Center were divided between blue team captain Nate Ryan and red team captain Jeff Gluck for a six-inning kickball game. Ryan teamed with media members Krista Voda, Bob Pockrass, Jay Busbee, and spotter T.J. Majors, while Gluck was joined by media members Rutledge Wood and Marty Smith, as well as Sam Busch (Kyle Busch’s wife) and Jacquelyn Butler (David Ragan’s fiancé ).
“Just coming in and seeing these kids’ faces, playing with them, it’s so much fun,” Butler said. “We are so happy to be able to be here and put smiles on their faces.”
“It didn’t matter what was going on, when they called to ask us to play, we were in,” said Busch, who admitted that as a kickball rookie, she prepared for the game by surfing YouTube for game tutorials.
And although the game started off friendly, the competitive juices kicked in by the third inning. Pockrass showed heretofore unknown athletic prowess by catching not one, not two, but three pop fly kicks, and Gluck showed his skills by diving to catch a line-drive kicked by Gordon.
In the end, the blue team won 7-6, but the more important result were the wide grins on the faces of 10 young survivors, and the publicity for Gordon’s monthlong challenge.
Fans can donate to Gordon’s Kick-It game by visiting his game page: http://www.kick-it.org/events/jeff-gordon-kicks-it.
