Aaron Johnson – Sports Editor
The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge could be seen all over the internet this summer. Everyone from the average person, to high-profile celebrities could be seen posting videos doing the challenge.
The challenge entails recording a video of pouring a bucket of ice water over your head before passing the challenge forward to a few other people. If the challenge is not completed within 24 hours, then the person has to donate $100. However many have opted to donate as well as performing the challenge. This off season several Southern Connecticut State University teams participated in the challenge.
“Our women’s volleyball team had received a challenge from somebody and we actually were given the challenge by them, men, and women’s soccer,” said Kelley Frassinelli.
According to the ALS official website, donates for the disease, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, has culminated in $109.1 million. Frassinelli said that she wanted to make sure that even after her team participated in the challenge, that they also made sure to donate as well.
“We decided to also donate,” she said. “We talked to the captains and the team and it was obviously something that we wanted to do so we put it to them. I think that if you’re going to have a cause you need to support it.”
Junior team captain Lauren Anderson, said that she liked the idea of the ALS Bucket Challenge because it was a fun way to spread awareness for the disease.
“I’ve been nominated by my friends to do it also,” she said. “Now it’s spreading to teams, coaches, and bigger organizations in the NE-10. It’s neat because we’re all athletic teams.”
The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge started by former Boston College captain Pete Frates, who is battling ALS himself, inspired the Ice Bucket Challenge that has raised awareness for the disease. Along with the field hockey team, members of the women’s soccer team also participated in the challenge.
“We were nominated by the volleyball team and AIC women’s soccer,” said Christine Allard, a sophomore forward on the women’s soccer team. “It was unexpected [to be nominated by AIC] I think. But we work really closely with them with fundraisers over the preseason so it was kind of nice as a little friendly gesture.”
ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Motor neurons reach from the brain to the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body. The progressive degeneration of the motor neurons in ALS eventually leads to their death. When the motor neurons die, the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost. With voluntary muscle action progressively affected, patients in the later stages of the disease may become totally paralyzed
The Ice Bucket Challenge caught a little bit of flack because people were posting videos as a fad instead of raising awareness for the disease. Frassinelli said that the team decided to donate to the cause as well to not fall into the “trap” of doing it for show.
“If you’re going to do it, you just don’t do it so you don’t have to donate,” Frassinelli said. “It’s not something where we did it because we just did it so we wouldn’t have to donate as well. Because we are donating also. I think that if it’s something that is important to you and it’s important to us. It’s something where we felt we needed to do something and put the challenge out there for other people also.”
Photo Credit: Anthony Quintano
