Cancer is a pretty scary thing. When it strikes someone you know, it can be even scarier.
Everybody in Boston knows Jon Lester, and during his rookie season in the majors in 2006, the Red Sox ace pitcher was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. After undergoing treatment and chemotherapy, Lester was cancer-free in time to win the clinching game of the 2007 World Series for the Red Sox.
Fast forward to 2013. Lester has gone 2-0 for the Sox in the World Series, striking out 15 Cardinals and giving up just one run along the way. He has been the definition of an ace for the Red Sox, who have ridden him to the brink of their third World Series Championship in the last 10 years.
Lester is a professional athlete, but that does not shelter him from the reality of cancer. During Game 4 of the World Series, there was an on-the-field tribute to the ongoing fight against cancer. FOX ran advertisements explaining how to contribute to the MLB’s efforts to fund cancer research and treatment.
It is obviously a terrific thing that professional athletes and sports leagues choose to highlight cancer as an enemy to be eradicated, but who decided to limit things to just cancer? In professional football, Breast Cancer Awareness Month is observed during October, and players, coaches and fans all wear pink attire and accessories.
Why isn’t every month in the NFL commemorated as “Fill-in-the-blank-disease Awareness Month”? Where is the place for autism, cerebral palsy, Alzheimer’s and cystic fibrosis?
In October, awareness and money are raised for fighting a disease that is one of the most well known afflictions in the world. The other four months of the NFL season hold no charitable significance.
Before his downfall as a professional doper (cyclist), Lance Armstrong helped the cancer-sports connection with his immensely powerful and money-gobbling charity Livestrong. Armstrong was one of the first athletes to use his success to highlight a cause, and since then, the popularity of the cancer cause has increased tenfold.
Finances should be no roadblock to charitable expansion: professional leagues should just skim off a certain percent of merchandise and ticket sales each month and donate the lump sum to a different worthy cause. Goodness knows the owners could suffer through fewer pairs of silk underpants and fur coats (I just got you to picture NFL owners in silk underpants).
Jon Lester is the rare athlete who has first-hand experience with cancer. Therefore, it is even more important that professional sports shine their spotlight on as many charitable causes as possible. His recent success only puts more emphasis on how disconnected most people in professional sports are from normal people.
Sports are a place we go to escape everyday life, which makes them the perfect place to highlight the folks who aren’t lucky enough to enjoy everyday life because they have to focus on their disease.
Professional sports are so popular and so lucrative; it is almost criminal not to direct as much money as possible toward charities. Despite screams of protest from owners’ and players’ wallets, they don’t need four Benzes and a Bentley. That money could be pulled from their checkbooks and put into the checkbooks of Autism Speaks, Susan G. Komen or the American Cancer Society.
Cancer is out there, it is scary, and it does affect a lot of people. But there are a lot of other scary things out there, many of which aren’t going away anytime soon. You know what’s also not going away anytime soon? Professional sports. The sooner we recognize that, the sooner we can use the power of one to fight the other.
Peter is a freshman in Media. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @pbaileywells22.
