Sports : A tale of two schools\' battle with cancer

Spartan Joe Weeks wore No. 24 on his wrist to honor a teammate fighting leukemia.

Viking basketball players wore pink socks Friday during the fund-raiser to fight breast cancer.

Solon players wore the number 24 on their wrists to honor a teammate facing cancer.

One team wore pink socks, and spent the entire halftime discussing cancer.

The other team wore masking tape with two numbers and two letters on it.

One team’s fans said a lot about its schools efforts to battle the disease.

The other team’s fans said nothing – except for the man who answered a question from this reporter.

One team raised nearly $2,500 in its school’s ongoing campaign to raise money to help the local hospital battle breast cancer.

The other team’s school is just beginning to deal with the issue.

The Vinton-Shellsburg fans could tell there was something special going on Friday, when the Vikings hosted Solon. The boys wore pink socks – yes, pink. They even work pink and black warm-up jerseys. Scores of fans were also wearing pink of some sort. The girls basketball players were there, too – in pink, of course.

During halftime, an auction called for bids on a pink basketball signed by the Vikings, as well as those black and pink warm-ups. When the auction was over, nearly $2,500 had been raised.

Meanwhile, the guys with the tape were in the visitors’ locker room, waiting for the second half and thinking about the number on the tape on their wrists.

24.

Even before the game began, I noticed that number on the wrists of the Solon players. Nearly everyone of them was wearing it on their wrist, but nobody was wearing a No. 24 jersey. I saw a man with a camera; a former Vinton newspaper guy who now owns the Solon paper. I asked him what it meant.

He told me.

Number 24 belongs to Solon senior Brett Smith. Smith is a senior; not a star player but a regular contributor to Solon’s success in its first 12 games. Then he got sick. Leukemia. Thye newspaper guy I know there says Smith’s treatment will not only keep him from finishing the basketball season, but also may keep him from attending school for much of his final semester.

While the halftime show was all about cancer, and the Vinton-Shellsburg efforts to fight it, I couldn’t help but think about the fans in black and orange, and No. 24. I wanted to say to someone from Solon: Hey, on behalf of Vinton-Shellsburg, give our best to your guy and his family. And his school. I’d tell them how our school district rallied around the family of a middle school boy when he got cancer. I’d tell them what our students and our families have learned: That something like this brings out the best in people. That this is a long and difficult journey – one we wish you didn’t have to experience – but it’s a journey that will make Solon residents realize that there is even more good in their community than they had thought.

I of course, did not get the chance to say it. But my job gives me the chance to write a lot of things I can’t, or never get the chance to, say.

And the most important lesson is this: Friday night was about way more than basketball, no matter which team you were in Vinton to support.

A very special color and very special number served as two totally different reminders of that.