Sideline Cancer is preparing for its 10th year playing in "The Basketball Tournament." The tournament has been running for 10 years, and Sideline Cancer representatives said they are the only team to play in each tournament.
Cathy Griffith said she started Sideline Cancer and the Griffith Family Foundation to help spread awareness and push for a cure to pancreatic cancer.
Her son, and Sideline Cancer Executive Director, Jordan Griffith said, "My mom's gone on this mission to destroy this ugly disease since it took her husband's life and my dad's life and so now, we wake up every morning and we think to ourselves, 'How can we use the things that we love to help change the world and change the outcome of pancreatic cancer?'"
The team's mission to spread awareness has a special meaning for Will Wise, one of its players.
Wise said he got sick December last year and diagnosed with stage four thyroid cancer in January.
"As a person who's currently battling stage four cancer, I'm personally on a mission to bring as much awareness to cancer and cancer research as I possibly can," Wise said. "Most people hear the word cancer and think of it as a taboo word and a word that shall not be spoken as it comes with a very eerie and dreary stigma, and here at sideline cancer they're working very hard to help change that."
Pancreatic cancer survivor Greg Adams visited the team at practice Sunday and said he was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer in July 2018. He said new technology and chemotherapy helped him over the last five years, but he is still pushing for improvement.
When I was first diagnosed, I was not a surgical candidate. I had a zero percent chance at survival," Adams said. "This is a disease that we need to figure out. We need to find better technologies, better resources for dealing with it when it's found or finding it sooner."
The team said their mixture of veteran leadership and talent makes them believe they have a chance to win the tournament this year. The winner of the tournament this year gets $1 million they said.
Their first game is Tuesday at 4 p.m. in Wheeling, West Virginia against 'Ram Nation,' a team of Virginia Commonwealth University alumni.
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