‘Think Pink’ Basketball Game Honors Breast Cancer Survivors

The Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico Women’s Bas­ket­ball team will face fierce com­pe­ti­tion from UNLV on Sat­ur­day, Feb. 9 at 2 p.m. The game will also fea­ture an even fiercer bat­tle — the bat­tle against breast can­cer. The UNM Can­cer Cen­ter and UNM Hos­pi­tals encour­age all audi­ence mem­bers to wear pink to raise aware­ness for breast can­cer and to honor all women with the disease.

Breast can­cer took the lives of 40,589 women in the United States in 2008, the lat­est year for which Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion data were avail­able. That same year, the CDC reports that 210,203 Amer­i­can women were diag­nosed with breast can­cer. It is the second-most com­mon can­cer among women in the United States and the lead­ing cause of can­cer death among women of all races and populations.

“Our breast can­cer patients con­stantly show us their tremen­dous courage,” said Cheryl Will­man, direc­tor and CEO of the UNM Can­cer Center.

The UNM Can­cer Cen­ter will host an invitation-only pre-game recep­tion for breast can­cer sur­vivors and their fam­ily and friends. At half­time, the UNM Can­cer Cen­ter, UNM Hos­pi­tals and Lobo Women’s Bas­ket­ball team will honor the women in a court-side ceremony.

“It is a priv­i­lege to pub­licly rec­og­nize these amaz­ing women,” Will­man said. “We thank the Lobo Women’s bas­ket­ball team for their sup­port and participation.”