When Leo Hearn lost his wife, Anita, to carcinoma two years ago, he wanted to do something. So he raised $10,000.
When Hearn’s daughter lost him a few months later, she coped the same way that her dad had. Sarah Kennedy led “Team Mama Hearn” for its second year in a Dribble for Victory Over Cancer campaign, raising $8,065. Kennedy gathered a 15-person group for the fundraising effort and took her family up to Durham from Jacksonville, Fla., to dribble together around Duke’s campus. It’s a place rich with meaning in her family — Leo Hearn earned his Masters in Forestry from Duke in the early 1980s and became a certified Cameron Crazie. In 1985, he married Anita at the Duke Chapel. Their daughter raised the third-highest amount among individual fundraisers, pulling in $6,215 by herself to make the biggest impact on her team.
“I've just been lucky that I have very supportive friends and family,” Kennedy said. “[Durham] is supportive, it's great. Everyone's so nice and family oriented, you always feel very welcome.”
Saturday morning, Duke men’s basketball hosted its third-annual Dribble for Victory Over Cancer event, featuring a mile-long dribble around Wallace Wade Stadium with members of the men’s team. The funds raised by community members amounted to $133,800, with 700 registrants for the event — the most that Dribble for Victory has gathered in its three-year history. The money benefits both the V Foundation for Cancer Research and the Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation, in partnership with Duke Children’s Hospital.
“We were created with the spirit of victory over cancer,” said Shane Jacobsen, CEO of the V Foundation, in welcoming remarks. “We’re not just here to make a run, not just Elite Eight, Final Four. We're here to win the championship … and beat cancer once and for all.”
The V Foundation’s mission, according to assistant director of communications Rebecca Erquitt, is “to fund game-changing research and all-star scientists to achieve victory over cancer.” Funds raised by Duke’s Dribble for Victory impacts that mission by allowing grant money to researchers and projects at Duke Children’s Hospital. In the 31 years that the V Foundation has existed, it has raised $353 million dollars — $90 million specifically for pediatric cancer research — and granted roughly $14 million to Duke Children’s Hospital, according to Jacobsen.
Jim Valvano — or “Jimmy V” — founded the V Foundation in 1993 with ESPN. Valvano coached N.C. State’s men’s basketball program between 1980 and 1990. Two years after finishing his tenure with the Wolfpack, Valvano was diagnosed with metastatic adenocarcinoma, a type of cancer that eventually took his life.
The V Foundation continues to honor Valvano, combining the fight against cancer with the game he devoted his life to. Former Duke basketball head coach Mike Krzyzewski, a friend of Valvano, has served on the organization’s board since its founding.
The impact of fundraising campaigns like Dribble for Victory allows serious progress to be made in cancer research. The childhood cancer survival rate has grown to 85% in recent years, according to Jacobsen. Fifty years ago, it was more like 50%.
Cancer has no bias; it is an illness that can affect anyone, and has affected almost everyone in some way. So while the Bostock Gate at Wallace Wade Stadium was stocked largely with Duke fans Saturday morning, members from the entire Triangle community gathered to dribble for victory.
Henry Greene isn’t usually a Duke fan. He comes from a Tiger family; his parents, Patrick and Stacey, both graduated from Auburn. Saturday, however, the Greene family adopted the Blue Devil fandom to headline fundraising efforts with Dribble for Victory. Henry, an outgoing, opinionated 9-year-old, still capable of making his parents laugh, was diagnosed with Stage IV Wilms tumor cancer with diffuse anaplasia earlier this year, and is now in the throes of a nine-month-long treatment at Duke Children’s Hospital.
The Greene family named their team fundraiser “Chains Out for Henry.” After Henry had received his diagnosis earlier this year, a seemingly random neck chain appeared, outside the Greene family home in Cary. Patrick decided to put it on.
“The chain gave us a little bit of swag, and we traded it back and forth whenever we’d go to the hospital,” Stacey said.
“... Whenever one of us was having a hard day,” Patrick said.
“And then it became something that supported us,” Henry said. Now, Stacey, Patrick and their three other children, as well as their friends and extended family members, wear chains every day in support of Henry.
Through the Dribble for Victory program, Chains Out for Henry raised $51,821 to fund research that will, they hope, defeat childhood cancer. Through the Dribble for Victory program, Henry and his family raised $51,821 to fund research that will, they hope, defeat childhood cancer.
“It’s an amazing event,” Patrick Greene said. “We had to continuously raise our goal because of all the donations we got. I want to thank all of our friends and family, my employer, Veloxis Pharmaceuticals, for their matching donations, and then the Auburn family for supporting us as well.”
Duke men’s basketball head coach Jon Scheyer, together with his wife Marcelle, honored Henry, along with 21 other children, as kid captains for the event. The basketball team covered captain Henry’s basketball in signatures while he dribbled the mile-long journey with his parents and three younger siblings.
Even weighed down by the chains around his neck, Henry Greene remains full of life. He dribbles; he fights.
You can donate to a Dribble for Victory Over Cancer campaign here.
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Sophie Levenson is a Trinity junior and a sports managing editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.