Penn State Basketball: Coaches Vs. Cancer Event Raises More than $100,000

Nearly 400 State College residents and business owners gathered Thursday night at Medlar Field at Lubrano Park for a reverse car drawing during the Coaches vs. Cancer event.

They helped raise more than $100,000 for cancer research.

While participants were treated to live music, a batting cage, the Penn State Blue Band, sky divers, and food and drink, Penn State men’s basketball coach Patrick Chambers reminded the crowd what the event was really for.

‘Cancer is winning,’ Chambers said. ‘If you can donate your time, your finances, both, we can help fight back. I hope that we don’t have to have one of these next year. I hope that they find a cure.’

For Chambers, cancer hit close to him this week as redshirt sophomore, and one of the recently selected team captains, DJ Newbill, lost his mother Tawanda Roach to cancer only two weeks following her diagnosis.

‘For me, as a teammate, one of your sons is hurting,’ Chambers said. ‘To lose his best friend in his mom, that’s pretty powerful. It’s hard to deal with and he has done an amazing job. He’s at school, at practice, I don’t know how many kids could do that.

‘But that’s where he finds comfort, in practice, in the classroom. We’re here for him, we project and scream ‘family’ all the time, but I think he’s really feeling it this week, that he’s truly part of something special.’

The reverse car drawing kicked off the CVC-Penn State chapter’s 2012-13 drive toward a total of $2 million raised for the American Cancer Society.

In its 17th year and second under Chambers, CVC-Penn State eclipsed more than $200,000 raised last year for the third-consecutive year and has been consistently ranked among the Top 10 CVC fund raising programs in the nation.