About the Coaches vs. Cancer Challenge

Four of college basketball's top teams compete in a two-day exempt tournament "tipping off" the regular season. Each team plays two games in two doubleheaders. The NCAA awarded Coaches vs. Cancer this special exemption, which allows teams to play these games in excess of the normal maximum number of contests.

Since its creation in 1999, the event has become the most highly attended preseason women's college basketball tournament in the country, attracting an average of more than 10,000 fans per game. The Coaches vs. Cancer Challenge has featured eight teams ranked in theTop 25 nationally, including No. 1 Connecticut, which hosted the inaugural event three years ago. Other past participants have included Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Georgia, Iowa State, Old Dominion, Wisconsin, Clemson and others.

Women's Basketball Coaches Association
www.wbca.org

Founded in 1981, the mission of the Women's Basketball Coaches Association is to promote women's basketball by unifying coaches at all levels to develop a reputable identity for the sport of women's basketball and to foster and promote the development of the game in all of its aspects as an amateur sport for women and girls.

The WBCA would never have been a reality if a group of women's coaches had not met at the Olympic Festival in Syracuse, N.Y. in 1981 to discuss the formation of a coaches association. There were some well-recognized names at that meeting: Hutchinson, 1992 Olympic coach Pat Summitt of Tennessee, 1988 Olympic coach Kay Yow of North Carolina State, C. Vivian Stringer of Cheyney State (now of Rutgers), and Colleen Matsuhara (now with the WNBA Los Angeles Sparks), among others. The coaches gathered and were concerned about the lack of an association to meet the needs of women's basketball coaches.

Thus was born the WBCA.

American Cancer Society/Coaches vs. Cancer
www.cancer.org

Coaches vs. Cancer, a collaboration between the National Association of Basketball Coaches and the American Cancer Society, exists to leverage the strength, community leadership and celebrity of our country’s basketball coaches to raise awareness and in turn, reduce cancer risk through education programs while raising funds for the fight against cancer.

Through the efforts of more than 500 basketball coaches and the nation’s largest voluntary health organization, more than 12 million dollars has been raised since 1994. The money raised provides prevention, research, education and advocacy services in more than 3,400 local communities – the communities where we live.