Sigma Nu will host its first annual Kick Ball-Cancer tournament to raise money for the Lance Armstrong Foundation this Saturday at the Miller IM Fields.
Andreas Antono, junior in biological sciences and a member of Sigma Nu, said all of the proceeds will be donated to the Lance Armstrong Foundation.
“His foundation raises money for cancer research and also helps out cancer patients that have been treated or still live with it,” Antono said.
The teams participating in the kickball tournament consist of students from the Greek community, campus organizations and the University.
Kellen Osburn, junior in civil engineering and community service chairman of Sigma Nu, said the fraternity wants to raise more awareness about cancer research and patients by getting people involved in a kickball tournament.
“Our goal is to incorporate Greeks and non-Greeks to participate in the tournament,” Osburn said.
Osburn said the Greek community and the rest of the student body tend to be more segregated from each other.
“Most of the time Greeks don’t get the best reputation,” Osburn said. “The kickball tournament will be a great way to put the two groups together and show a good image of the Greek community.”
Antono also said they hope to establish an event that involves the whole campus and get the word out about what the Greek community is doing.
“A lot of people have this negative image of Greeks,” Antono said. “You tell somebody you’re part of a fraternity and they automatically judge you about something. We just really want people to see that we’re not just about parties. There are a lot of aspects to Greek life and this is a way we can get the word out.”
Osburn said in order to create the event, Sigma Nu was sponsored by Campus Recreation, as well as by other local businesses .
“They ended up supplying us with the fields and gave us the equipment,” said Antono. “They let us use their list serve to access more people and ended up setting up the tournament schedule for us. They were a big help.”
Chris Boemermann, a junior in business administration and philanthropy chairman & Web site chairman of Sigma Nu, said there are currently eight female teams with seven of them being part of the Panhellenic sororities and other student organizations. He also said two fraternities have recently signed up, and he hopes more students will register before the event.
“We’re trying to get more people out there,” Boemermann said. “It’s kind of hard for Greek organizations because we do a lot of events for Greek which makes it hard to get other student organizations to come out and participate with us.”
Sigma Nu-Beta Tau earned its charter back last October after losing it a few years ago. It was the first fraternity founded at the University in 1895.
Antono said the kickball tournament is the first philanthropy event which it is hosting since the fraternity was reestablished.
”A lot of these things are just learning experiences for us because we’re still new on campus,” Antono said. “We’re still a new fraternity and we’re still learning.”
He also said that an event like this can take a couple of years to become fully established on campus.
“If it ends up going well, people that participate this year will know to come back next year and maybe tell their friends about it,” Antono said. “It’s an ongoing process that we want to build on for the following years.”
Each team will be guaranteed to play at least two games. The top four teams in each bracket will play for the championship and the top three finalists of each bracket will win a trophy.
Antono said the fraternity just wants to have fun with the tournament.
“I don’t remember playing kickball since the sixth grade. It’s about going back to something that you did as a kid,” Antono said. “It can be kind of reliving with all the stress from school work and stuff. We want people to be present there to help us raise money for the foundation.”
