Ninth annual KU’s Ladies Night Out a big success
LAWRENCE, Kan. – More than 450 women gathered in historic Allen Fieldhouse for the ninth annual “Ladies Night Out” hosted by Kansas men’s basketball Wednesday evening.
The KU men’s basketball players and staff joined the 450-plus women to show them a behind-the-scenes look at the KU program. In conjunction with breast cancer awareness month, the event, which has sold out every year, benefits Jayhawks for a Cure with all the proceeds donated to LMH Health in an effort to fund cancer research. Many of the event’s attendees are cancer survivors.
Sponsors for the 2018 Ladies Night Out included LMH Health, Rally House, Miller Coors and McLains Market.
Following a couple historic KU videos, Self introduced the team and staff to the attendees as they sat on the west side bleachers of Allen Fieldhouse.
“This is a fun event that we enjoy each and every year because it’s for a terrific cause,” Kansas head coach Bill Self said.
Self had the patrons raise their hands if they have been directly affected by cancer, “that’s roughly 50 percent,” he said. He then asked for a show of hands if they had a direct family member affected by cancer, “and that is 100 percent or right at it.”
“We understand as a group how serious this is and this is a small way which we can give back to research,” Self said.
Self had the student-athletes introduce themselves and something interesting about themselves. Some of the more fun interesting facts included: K.J. Lawson enjoys playing chess, Chris Teahan is ambidextrous, Silvio De Sousa is a better soccer player than basketball player and David McCormack was born in the Bronx, New York.
Then the players and staff participated in a Q&A session and giveaways. Following, those in attendance split up into smaller groups and headed off to stations throughout the Kansas Athletics complex.
Stations included a photo with Self, a locker room tour, a basketball scouting report video demonstration, a strength and conditioning demo by associate athletics director Andrea Hudy and basketball drills mixed in with another Q&A/photo session with staff members. Another station gave attendees the chance to shoot photos and gather autographs with many of the current Jayhawks.
Ladies Night Out is one of several Jayhawks for the Cure events that takes place throughout the calendar year. Pink out games for KU’s 18 varsity home events also raise awareness and funds for the cause. Student-athletes, coaches and staff work together with the university and the community of Lawrence to raise money for cancer research at LMH Health and the KU Cancer Center.
FOLLOW
@KUHoops
/KansasBasketball
@KUHoops
KUAthletics.com: The official online source for Kansas Athletics, Williams Education Fund contributions, tickets, merchandise, multimedia, photos and much, much more.
