Wingate, N.C.----The Wingate University women’s basketball team has decided to leave the wood pile bigger than they found it. “This year, we decided to enrich our player’s lives with opportunities to provide service to others,” Bulldog head coach Barbara Nelson says. This week, Wingate fans will have two opportunities to help the Bulldogs give back.
 
Each month, the Wingate women’s basketball team participates in (at least) one community service project that focuses on helping others. Tonight, Wingate will bring attention to Samaritan’s Feet as the Bulldogs host Lenoir-Rhyne for a 6 p.m. South Atlantic Conference contest. On Saturday afternoon, Wingate will partner with the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) to host Play 4Kay. The Bulldogs entertain Tusculum Saturday at 2 p.m. Both games will take place in Cuddy Arena on the Wingate campus.
 
“We believe it is important to give back,” Nelson says. “Through our involvement in Samaritan’s Feet and Play 4Kay, we are learning to pay forward. Helping provide shoes through Samaritan’s Feet…for children who otherwise would never have a pair of shoes…is humbling. Through Play 4Kay, we have the opportunity to honor a leader in women’s basketball and raise funds for breast cancer research. We are grateful to our fans and friends who support our endeavors.”  
 
Samaritan’s Feet models servant leadership in a simple way: by washing the feet and providing a new pair of socks and shoes to impoverished children worldwide. Nelson and the Bulldog coaching staff will coach the Lenoir-Rhyne in their bare feet to provide a voice for the 300,000,000 million children who wake every day in their bare feet.
 
For 2012 and beyond, the WBCA Pink Zone™ has been rebranded as Play 4Kay. The mission of the initiative, which was brought to life in 2007, will remain intact: a nation of coaches raising breast cancer awareness on the court, across campuses, in communities and beyond. The Kay Yow Cancer Fund™ will continue to be the official charity of the initiative.

The justification behind the rebranding is to keep the story and legacy of Kay Yow at the forefront of every ideal the Fund embraces. For more information, visit the links listed above (in the fourth and fifth paragraph).
 
WINGATE UNIVERSITY
 
Founded in 1896, Wingate University is a comprehensive university with more than 2,500 students on three campuses in Wingate, Matthews and Hendersonville, N.C. The university offers 34 undergraduate majors, 37 minors and career concentrations, numerous pre-professional programs, graduate degrees in business, accounting, physician assistant studies and sports administration and doctorates in pharmacy and education.
 
Wingate students gain the tools and support they need to excel in academics and apply that learning toward an extraordinary career and life. The campus community offers in-class learning, out-of-class experiences, strong mentors, a competitive yet caring environment and rewarding community service opportunities for a complete educational experience.
 
Bulldog student-athletes compete in 19 NCAA Division II sports. Wingate University has won the South Atlantic Conference Echols Athletic Excellence Award for the past five years.
 
Wingate University is ranked number three among NCAA Division II Academic All-America® producing schools in the 2000’s with 42 honorees during this millennium. Only Pittsburg State (Kan.) University and Truman State (Mo.) University have produced more Academic All-America® honorees during this time period. Wingate’s 51 Academic All-America® honorees (lifetime) is tops among all SAC schools.
 
(Thank you to Wingate assistant women’s basketball coach India Elliott for contributing the picture for this article.)