In the month of October, you may notice football players playing as usual but in pink. This does not happen just in our home fields at Grant but it is national awareness for cancer. Originally just for Breast Cancer awareness, the NFL has worn pink for Breast Cancer Awareness. It is called a crucial catch and the goal is to spot Cancer is at an early stage and create a risk reduction.
The NFL sells pink football gear to places such as schools for money to be used for breast cancer awareness. “100% of proceeds from pink products auctioned on NFL Auction go directly to the American Cancer Society. The NFL does not profit from the sale or auction of pink merchandise.”
For the eighth year straight the NFL has continued to support and gather proceeds for cancer awareness. Most proceeds are gained from school football teams such as our own.
“They wear it to bring awareness for breast cancer… The NFL sells that stuff so they get part of the money from selling that gear (which) goes to breast cancer research,” said teacher Ross Purchatske.
It is important to be cautious and another one of the NFL’s goals is to find cancer early on so it becomes easier to treat.

Crucial Catch, however, is not the only organization the NFL supports. Supporting 32 clubs, the NFL donates $120 million to over 642 different charities, raising over $19 million for crucial catch.
“For a long time, we have been supporting causes close to the heads of the NFL. To find out they are really following through with this, it makes me feel like the players are gaining more of a voice,” says Devon Still from the Cincinnati Bengals.
At the moment football players will be fined for wearing pink in any month other than October which makes pink on the field exclusively to promote cancer research. The idea of early screenings and funding for research might just save someone close to you their life.
A study in 2018 conducted by Cancer.gov estimates that 609,640 would die of cancer in the U.S. One of the most common forms being breast cancer.
The importance of the crucial catch is obvious. Killing 8.2 million people worldwide isn’t something overlooked, making cancer the 2nd most common disease in the U.S. Most people have known someone with cancer which makes it much more real.