Sartell’s Tackle Cancer Game Looks To Raise Money & Awareness

SARTELL (WJON News) -- Sartell -St. Stephen High School Football will go pink on Friday in support of a good cause. The team will play in the school's 12th Annual Tackle Cancer Game to raise money for the Randy Shaver Cancer Research Fund and TriUnity Foundation.

Head Coach Scott Hentges says it can be a challenge to get the team ready and coordinate all the extra things needed for the game but it is a great learning experience for the team:

"I think it's always kind of fun for the guys to just realize that sometimes you are playing for things that are bigger than yourselves and so we'll kind of weave some of that tackle cancer stuff in this week during practice and talk about it a little bit."

He says the team also enjoys getting to show some pink flair on their uniforms. The players have to make a donation to the cancer fund in order to get to wear pink and Junior Captain Peyton Allen says it's a no-brainer to give to the cause to be able to add some colorful touches to the uniforms:

"Yeah, it's always fun to kind of wear something different and just like spice it up I guess, because there is so many different things that you can wear that are pink just on your uniform."

Activities Director Bruce Thompson says the school really gets behind the game and fundraising and this year they will have some special halftime entertainment too:

"And it's also Sartell Youth Football Night so that has partnered with Tackle Cancer so we'll have, I don't know a hundred or hundreds of Sartell Youth Football players and their families that will be coming out to the game and they'll actually be playing at halftime, they get the first four minutes, we'll get them off, they're actually going to help us set up the field and then we'll do our tackle cancer contests and giveaway."

The school has been selling pink jerseys and themed hats to raise money, they will do a pass a helmet collection at halftime and there is a halftime raffle too. Anyone who attends the game gets one ticket for the raffle and if you wear pink you get a second ticket. Captains Levi Frieler and Allen say it is special to be able to play in the Tackle Cancer Game every year:

(Frieler) "Like coach said it's just playing for something bigger than ourselves and knowing that a lot of this is going towards cancer research just makes it really cool."

 

(Allen) "Yeah, same as that, it's cool to have it like make people aware in our school and just that have everyone go towards the same cause."

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Thompson says they raised the bar pretty high last year by raising over $10,000 so they hope to be able to match that with this year's game but the goal is to raise as much as they can and raise awareness. The Tackle Cancer Game is at 7:00 p.m. on Friday and Sartell will take on St. Cloud Tech.

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