N.C. Fraternities Join Our Fight

By Alex Petercuskie, Staff Writer

North Carolina Fraternities Join HEADstrong Movement

Students, families and fans attended a lacrosse exhibition game between N.C. State’s club lacrosse team and various N.C. State fraternities Friday night.

While the club lacrosse team went home with a win, the event was more than a friendly night of competition. Tickets for the event were $3 and proceeds helped support the HEADstrong foundation, an organization that advocates and raises money for those affected by blood cancer and their families.

The nonprofit HEADstrong was founded soon after Nicholas Colleluori, a lacrosse player for both his high school team and Hofstra University, was diagnosed with B-cell non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a type of blood cancer, according to HEADstrong’s website.

Since its founding, the organization has relied on lacrosse communities throughout the United States to spread the word about those affected with blood cancer and to raise funds for patients and their families to help with various challenges, such as paying for medical expenses, according to HEADstrong.

According to HEADstrong’s website, Colleluori told his mother that the lacrosse family was his brotherhood and to make certain that she continued to help the foundation grow in support of those effected by blood cancer.

Simon Kang and Maxwell Kangkolo, members of Alpha Sigma Phi, helped keep Colleluori’s message and vision alive when they came up with the idea of the exhibition game on the University’s campus.

Kang played lacrosse in high school and after playing a little during this past summer decided an exhibition game would be a great way to do something different among fraternities. Kang said he thought to himself, rather than just throw the ball around with some friends, we should transform it into an event that supports a worthy cause.

Kang said putting on the event was a fun way for fraternities to interact with one another and to build relationships with more than one fraternity.

The exhibition game, held on Miller Field, raised about $570, according to Kang, and attracted between 60 and 80 spectators.

Kang said he believed the event was a success and hopes to continue the tradition, already planning an event for next semester. The next exhibition game would serve as a good way to kick-off the club team’s spring season as well, according to Kang.