The Dig-Pink Girls’ Volleyball Tournament hosted by Oakton High School on Oct. 1 combined inspiration and passion to create a meaningful experience for competitors. Attended by three times the normal amount of fans, all decked out in various shades of pink or the traditional "Dig Pink" shirt sold at the door, the Breast-Cancer Awareness event seemed to be a much bigger event that most any other match.

"There’s a reason for us to be here. There’s a reason for people to come and support us. We want to win this, even more because of what it means, but because it’s for a good cause, no one is really going to forget about it easily," said Marcela Hawkins, a freshman team captain for Oakton.

Inspired by Hawkins, the Oakton Lady Cougars won all three of their matches against the Centreville Wildcats, but to each team — freshmen, junior varsity and varsity — what really mattered was what they were all playing for the potential to save lives.



BREAST-CANCER AWARENESS has seen many advocates, but none quite like high school volleyball coach Rick Dunetz, who founded the Side-Out Foundation to sponsor the first breast-cancer-awareness-volleyball-tournament. Now coaching the Freshmen Girls’ Volleyball Team at Oakton, Dunetz started the program to raise money in the fight against breast cancer because of the effect both volleyball and cancer have had on his own life.

Gloria Dunetz, his mother, having survived cancer once, was notified a couple years ago of the recurrence of her breast cancer during the same period when Rick Dunetz had been promoted to head coach at West Springfield. His coaching and his anxiety for his mother were a difficult dose to take during this time, and when he finally confided in his team, they took his story to heart and made it into one of their own — an account of overcoming and true success.

When the team pulled together and began winning so often that they were able to snag their first ever District Championship title, his mother, who was always inspired by watching his team play, began to recover and fight the cancer. Between the West Springfield team and Rick Dunetz’s endurance, his foundation emerged as an idea to pass on the story of triumph to others in need.

The girls recounted how a story like Rick Dunetz’s is a "true inspiration." On his original West Springfield team, a team captain spoke for the Side-Out Foundation on how "seeing that he was giving it everything he had made us think we had to do the same. It gave us the will to win."

The statistics are proof of the internalized emotion that follows an event like this. At Oakton’s Dig Pink event, Christine Tran, a senior on the Varsity Team, knew she had to win. "It wasn’t an option," she said. "This was our most intense game yet. It was a happy event when we tied it up in those last few points." Ninety percent of teams who host a Dig Pink match have been recorded to win it. The Side-Out Foundation, who sponsors these matches, hopes to raise $1 million to fund research, care and education about breast cancer. They covered a lot of ground with the $2,000 they raised at Oakton’s tournament.

"It gives us unity, a common purpose and goal, and we’re pumped up to play our hardest, because there’s a good reason for us to do that," Tran said, smiling.

That was a sentiment echoed by Kaylee Homyk and Kayla Gaughan, both freshmen captains at Oakton who professed how this particular match was an event the whole team had worked towards with intensity and played doubly as carefully as usual.



DUNETZ was well-rewarded for all the time and effort he put into his team and into the match. As people oohed-and-ahhed over the hot pink banners, the enthusiastic varsity cheer performance between games, the theme-designated baked goods and Rick Dunetz-designed Dig Pink T-shirts outside the gymnasium, the coach was receiving comments and commendations even as he was shouting instructions and running up the sidelines. To top off his night, he received win after win on the court, which he took with no small pleasure, jumping up and down when they scored and at the end of the game, racing down the court to gather the team together.

That’s what he was best at. With all his emotion and dedication, he was pulling the Oakton team together — to play it’s hardest and to always have a reason for doing so.


By Kirin Gupta

Oakton High Junior