For Golden Eagles, 'Dig Pink' game is about more than volleyball

GILFORD — For a high school athlete, it can be easy to become fixated on the season, the game, or even the point in front of her. It’s part of a coach’s job to remind her players that there’s a bigger picture – the larger world that exists beyond the court or playing field.

That’s why, said Amy Tripp, the Gilford High School volleyball team is continuing with its tradition of holding a special game later this week, despite the pandemic.

“The ‘Dig Pink’ game, which is coming up on Friday, is a 10- or 12-year tradition,” said Tripp, the coach of the team. The Dig Pink game is the culmination of an annual effort by the team to raise money to be donated to the American Cancer Society for breast cancer research. Each year, students are challenged to raise $100 each, and to participate in group fundraising efforts, leading up to a home game when the players wear pink jerseys, there are raffles and bake sales, and the team generates between $2,000 and $4,000 to donate.

This year probably won’t match the usual tallies – Tripp said the team is up to about $1,700 – but the coach said the tradition is as much about honoring the memory of a former player as it is about improving outcomes for breast cancer patients in the future.

“I’m sitting in my office right now, and I’m looking at a picture of Amy Annis,” Tripp said on Tuesday. Amy (Annis) Colby grew up in Gilmanton and was a multi-sport athlete. She played on a couple of state championship volleyball teams, then left GHS to go to pursue college and a legal career in Boston.

Her promising life was cut short by breast cancer. Colby died in 2012, when she was just 32.

“If that could ever be prevented, to have a 32-year-old die of breast cancer, we want to be part of that,” Tripp said.

Serena Pugh, one of the seniors on the GHS volleyball team, said the team wasn’t able to do its usual fundraising activities this year due to concerns about coronavirus, but they did take a team hike. The game on Friday, she said, “represents all of the lead-up to it. It has a lot of importance to me, and importance to every single girl on the team… it represents all the women, all the families that have been affected by breast cancer, in one event.”

Attendance at the Dig Pink game, like all other games, will be restricted. There will be balloons and other special decorations, but the general public won’t be invited to come and browse the food tables or buy a raffle ticket. They can still support the effort, however, by going to the website for the Greater Lakes Region Making Strides Against Breast Cancer and contributing to team “GVT 2020.”

Pugh said the game on Friday, when undefeated Gilford will host Belmont, will be a chance to remember Colby, “and all of the families who have been affected within our volleyball team. As an all-girls team, it’s important to be aware of this, because we are like a family, it’s like our family teaching us about something that someone on our team could suffer from.”

If Pugh needed an event to underscore the seriousness of the concern, she got it recently when she had a health scare of her own. “Even at 17, I have had to get something checked out. It gave me a little wakeup call,” she said.

Tripp said her players take the tradition to heart.

“Especially the varsity, they get it. They love volleyball, the tradition, they get it,” Tripp said. “I really don’t feel like I have to force it on them. That’s the part that makes me feel proud. They want to do this for other people, for charity. I do feel that I’m accomplishing something other than volleyball, to be that avenue for giving back.”