On Monday afternoon, the Bradley baseball team traveled to downtown Peoria, but this trip was a little different than the one the club normally takes to Dozer Park.
Instead of a baseball diamond, the team packed into a playroom on the sixth floor of the Children’s Hospital of Illinois.
This visit comes as a part of the team’s efforts to combat childhood cancer, efforts that so far have raised more than $13,000 through Vs. Cancer Foundation.
While the Vs. Cancer Foundation was started by former University of North Carolina (UNC) baseball player Chase Jones, Bradley’s endeavors are headed by junior pitcher Steve Adkins.
“[Chase Jones] was diagnosed with stage four brain cancer,” Adkins said. “He started this foundation after he beat cancer.”
Adkins also said Bradley isn’t the only club that’s participating through the Vs. Cancer Foundation.
“A bunch of different college ball teams across the country are going through this as well,” Adkins said. “We raise a bunch of money, [and] half of it goes locally to that team’s community, and the other half goes to substantial research.”
Head coach Elvis Dominguez said that he approached Adkins about the opportunity to lead the fight against childhood cancer, and Adkins ran with it from there.
“[Adkins] really took the bull by the horn and decided that this was a great cause,” Dominguez said. “It’s a small token but any time we can use our position [to] bring awareness and obviously do something good, I think it needs to be done.”
Along with Bradley, there are 53 other colleges that are raising money through Vs. Cancer, including Texas A&M, UCLA, UNC and Duke University.
According to Adkins, the team originally set a goal to raise $5,000 for Vs. Cancer, but they eclipsed that goal in very little time and have raised over $13,000. Now, Adkins said that while they no longer have a specific monetary goal in mind, their new objective is to contribute as much as possible.
“I don’t know if we necessarily set a new goal, but until the season’s over we’re going keep trying to get donations pouring in,” Adkins said.
Dominguez said even though they don’t get tangible rewards in return, the feeling that comes with helping those in need is satisfactory enough.
“Each individual guy here can now know that they’ve done a good deed,” Dominguez said. “It’s not about them; it’s about helping others.”
Back on the sixth floor of the Children’s Hospital, the Bradley baseball team is using an origami fortune teller to tell the fortune of one of the children the team’s profits is benefitting. She asks the fortune teller if she will find a dollar in her future, and magically, her fortune comes true by the graces of the Bradley baseball team.
Adkins said the team wanted to visit the hospital since part of the money raised would have an effect locally.
“Since half of the money we raised is going, right here, to the Children’s Hospital of Illinois, we just wanted to get in touch with some of these kids,” Adkins said. “I think a big reason we wanted to do this was to try and get in touch with these kids and show them we got their back.”
