Football Players Don Pink for Breast Cancer Awareness

It was an emotional day for the Bridgewater-Raritan Pop Warner Panthers Oct. 2, as the team went pink to show support for Breast Cancer Awareness and the Danny Liss Cancer Awareness Foundation. 

The football players laced up their spikes with pink laces and applied pink ribbon decals to their helmets. The flag football players wore pink flags in place of the traditional red flags, and the cheerleaders wore pink bows in their hair and pink shoelaces.

Prior to the start of the Mitey Mite football game, the Mitey Mite football players and cheerleaders escorted out to midfield Honorary Game Captain Head Mitey Mite Cheer Coach Melinda Perry, now a six-year survivor of breast cancer. Perry was greeted by Head Cheer Commissioner Brooke Herbst at midfield and presented with a pink bouquet of flowers. 

The emotional day didn’t stop there—it continued with the presentation of the Danny Liss “Little Big Man” Award for a Bridgewater-Raritan Pop Warner Football player that best exemplified the person that Danny Liss was on and off the field. 

Jr. Midget Head Coach Kevin Johnson spoke about the player and person that Liss was on and off the field, and how being one of the smallest players on the team never stopped him from taking on the biggest opponent in practice or in a game. 

Liss died of cancer in August 2010, and this award will continue on in his memory.

Liss’s father spoke of his son and of the Danny Liss Foundation that was started in order to help find a cure for the rare form of cancer that claimed the young life. 

This year’s recipient of the Danny Liss “Little Big Man,” Award was Scott Bieda.  Bieda was a former Bridgewater-Raritan Pop Warner Player and a member of the Bridgewater-Raritan Pop Warner Team that won a National Pop Warner Championship in Disney World. 

Bieda was also part of this year’s lacrosse team that won the New Jersey Tournament of Champions, when the team defeated an undefeated Summit High School team.     

The Bridgewater-Raritan Pop Warner Program donated all the 50/50 proceeds for the entire day to the Danny Liss Foundation.