JAMESVILLE-DEWITT HIGH SCHOOL – Jamesville-DeWitt High School’s soccer teams hosted the district’s 15th annual Sally A. Lock/Coaches Vs. Cancer charity soccer games on Saturday, Oct. 5.
For the occasion, J-D faced off against Fulton in a doubleheader, with J-D winning the boys junior varsity game that started the afternoon 4-0 before coming out on top in the varsity game by a score of 3-0.
To go along with the wins, the weather could not have been better throughout the entire afternoon, said Paul Krause, the head coach of J-D’s boys junior varsity soccer team and the lead organizer of the fundraising event. He added that the forecast for the event this year differed from last year’s pair of games, which were met with a downpour.
Krause made the decision to begin doing a charity game in 2010 while his sister, the event’s namesake Sally Lock, was battling ovarian cancer for the second time in four years.
On the Labor Day weekend of that year, Krause was heading back from visiting her at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, and he knew he needed to start something to honor her and provide greater assistance in the fight against cancer.
“I was there for like four or five hours just talking to her,” Krause said. “Then on the way back to Syracuse I came up with the idea of maybe having a charity game to raise some money for the American Cancer Society.”
That same fall, with the help of J-D’s athletic director at the time, John Goodson, the Red Rams set it up with Baldwinsville to play the district’s first-ever charity soccer games in support of that cause, placing it at the very end of the season schedule.
Though Lock would sadly pass away on the final day of 2010 at the age of 46, the annual event has officially been named after her ever since.
In the weeks before this year’s event, the players from the J-D boys soccer squads sold commemorative royal blue T-shirts and long sleeves to raise money, going on to don their own during warm-ups before their respective games. The coaches on the sidelines and the fans in the stands wore their pre-ordered shirts of different sizes as well, and Fulton’s team members and parents bought ones for themselves too to show solidarity.
There were also gift basket raffles available at the event and local businesses provided their sponsorship, helping the teams raise $10,315 in total this year to benefit the American Cancer Society and the Coaches vs. Cancer program for which that advocacy organization collaborates with the National Association of Basketball Coaches.
With an American Cancer Society representative in attendance for the on-field ceremony on Oct. 5, a large-sized check was presented that sunny, almost-70-degree day as the players from all four teams gathered in front of the bleachers.
Krause, who is also one of the district’s computer technicians, said he’s appreciated the generous support over the years for the event named in memory of his sister Sally.
“The J-D community’s been great,” he said. “The teachers, the parents of the kids, and the community members have been great working with me for the past 15 years. They’ve always come out—it’s huge.”
Since the event’s inception, it has raised over $100,000 and the purpose behind it has come to mean even more to Krause, as he’s seen his father pass away from stage four lymphoma, another sister battle and survive cancer, and colleagues of his at J-D as well as a few former soccer players he coached die from cancer. Additionally, he’s met more and more people who, like him, have lost family and friends to cancer.
He’s also seen students who played under him go on to support their college campuses’ Coaches vs. Cancer events or use it as inspiration to volunteer at hospitals and give back in other ways for similar causes.
Krause said somewhere between 400 and 500 shirts are sold in advance every year for J-D’s charity soccer game. The charity game was named the 2020 New York State Soccer Event of the Year according to the district, and there are plans to possibly incorporate a bake sale as part of the fundraising endeavor next time around. Krause said he will keep the event going as long as he’s coaching and working at J-D High School, always keeping it a goal to preserve the memory of his sister and other loved ones.