Rugby Lady Raiders “Pink Out” for Breast Cancer Awareness

Rugby students are traditionally fans of the red, white and blue school colors found in the Raiders’ school mascot logo, but the school was recently awash in pink.

“There was pink everywhere you turned around,” said Karen Maxon, the school’s library media specialist.

Initiated by Rugby’s girls soccer team, Monday was “Pink Out” day at the school, to raise awareness of breast cancer and to honor Maxon – a 7-year breast cancer survivor.

Maxon, whose daughter is on the Lady Raiders soccer team for the first time this year, was the team’s honorary captain and was at the center of the field for the coin toss at the game’s beginning.

“Ms. Maxon is such an inspiration to our school,” said Jeff Davenport, history teacher and girls’ soccer coach at Rugby.

Maxon’s story inspired Davenport to sponsor the “Pink Out” day in the school and on the soccer field, and also served as the kickoff to Rugby’s fundraising efforts for the Relay for Life of Henderson County in May.

Throughout the day, students and teachers were decked out in pink, and the Lady Raiders wore pink team shirts, pink soccer socks and pink breast cancer ribbons in their hair for their afternoon game.

“We got special permission from the referees to wear shirts that don’t have numbers on them,” Davenport said. “I thought that was a nice gesture.”

“The socks today were a surprise,” he said.

“The girls were having a fit, saying, ‘Coach, (Rugby’s) red socks do NOT go with pink shirts,’” Davenport said. “And I said, ‘Well, we’ll just have to deal with it.’”

But 10 minutes before the game, he surprised the girls with pink socks he’d purchased for the team with leftover fundraising money.

He even spent Sunday evening before the game sewing corner flags out of fabric dotted with pink breast cancer awareness ribbons, and tweeted a photo of his work to spread the news about “Pink Out” day.

“It’s humbling, and I’m very appreciative of Coach Davenport’s support of (cancer awareness) in the school,” Maxon said at halftime.

She said, “He is consistently a champion for all cancer awareness,” dating back to when Maxon was diagnosed in 2009.

“We’ve worked together all that time,” Maxon said. “The entire school community has been very supportive.”

(Written by Molly McGowan Gorsuch, HCPS Public Information Officer.)