By: Cheney Hurley –
Students Together Against Cancer (STAC) hosted a basketball game featuring 22 teachers and staff members in Prasch Gymnasium on April 6. Junior Kyle Krueger is one of the three co-presidents of the STAC club, including juniors Fidan Ibrahimova and Harrison Hall, and says that he was extremely satisfied with the overall outcome of the Dunks for Dollars event.
“Last year we raised about $900 and this year we wanted to break $1000. We smashed our goal by raising over double last year’s amount,” said Krueger.
Through the money from tickets sales and extra donations, the STAC club made a total of $1837, doubling what they raised last year. All of this money is sent to their “parent” organization, the UNL Students Together Against Cancer club. From there, the UNL STAC members find a family who is in need of the funds and the purpose is to have the money pay for things like bills or groceries so they can focus solely on beating the cancer.
STAC members of last year’s club decided to do the teacher basketball game because they wanted to host something unique from what other clubs and fundraisers do.
“Last year, when Greta Solomon was president, we were brainstorming ideas because a lot of events were taken by one club or another. Eventually, we landed on a teacher’s basketball tournament and [last year] it was kind of in the rough stages, but we decided on teachers versus teachers,” said Krueger.
Krueger sent a mass email out to teachers along with a google form for them to fill out.
“[Teachers] could fill [the form] out with their information, they could say if they wanted to be a coach or a player, and they could rate themselves from one to five [for] how good they were, which we used to balance the teams,” said Krueger.
Jon Mierau is one of the teachers that played in the Dunks for Dollars game. Mierau ended up emerging as one of the key players in the game. Although individual points for each player were not kept, Mierau estimated that he scored around twelve points to help his team to victory. Mierau played basketball back in college and the sport is still something that interests him today.
“I played in [the Dunks for Dollars game] last year and it was a lot of fun hanging out with the staff,” said Mierau. “I played college basketball at York College and I also tried out for a few professional teams when I was 30, so that was big to me and something that really interested me. It earns money for charity, so that’s a win-win.”
The environment of the game reminded Mierau of his high school and college games.
“I ended up hitting the winning shot, so it reminded me of when you make a big shot and the crowd cheers,” said Mierau. “I haven’t had that in 12 years [as a player]. It was a good atmosphere.”
He was confident he could make the shot even though it was a pretty long 3-pointer. By making the shot, he scored the last points of the game to secure a win of 47-45.
“My stepkids and my wife came to the game and they watched the first half. Having family there to watch you, that’s my favorite part,” said Mierau.
As for Krueger, he was satisfied with the outcome of the game and he plans to continue doing the Dunks for Dollars game in the future.
“It makes me happy that the event is so enjoyable for students to watch while also providing a great outlet for fundraising for a great cause,” said Krueger.
