What do 200-pound tractor tires, a leg press machine and 96 Penn State football players have in common?
They're all weapons in the fight against kidney cancer -- a fight that continues today with the sixth annual Lift for Life in Holuba Hall. All the proceeds go to the Kidney Cancer Association.
Former Penn State football player Scott Shirley is the executive director of Uplifting Athletes, the group that puts on Lift for Life. The event started when Shirley's father was diagnosed with kidney cancer during his junior season. Shirley's roommate at the time, former Penn State player Damone Jones, suggested the football team do something to raise awareness of the rare disease, which affects about 31,000 people each year.
From that moment on, Lift for Life has been run entirely by student-athletes.
"The players are actively engaged in it," Shirley said. "It's not something that's planned by somebody else and the players are told when to be there. You'll see that this is really something that they've worked very hard to put together. ... The guys say, 'Hey, I heard what we're trying to do, how can I help?' rather than, 'Man, do I have to do this?' "
Twenty-four teams of Nittany Lions will compete to see who can lift the most during the 11-event challenge. Teams of four will take turns flipping tires, bench pressing, pulling weighted sleds and doing other exercises.
Junior running back Ryan Gmerek is coordinating this year's event and said he hopes the team can raise more than last year's total of $80,000.
Another goal Uplifting Athletes has, Gmerick said, is to expand Lift for Life to other schools.
"We're trying to start chapters up at Ohio State, Virginia Tech, Florida," Gmerick said. "Each college would pick a different underserved disease to represent and to raise money for."
An underserved disease is one that, according to the group's Web site, "lacks national representation."
Shirley has reached out to other schools in an effort to start new chapters.
"We spent a lot of time developing a model and packaging it," Shirley said. "It's just a matter of finding the right football student-athletes at the right school and sharing it with them and helping them find a connection to a rare disease that's relevant to them and hopefully we can go from there."
Colgate University has adopted a chapter of Uplifting Athletes and plans to hold its first Lift for Life on July 25. According to the group's Web site, 35 football players will compete.
In addition to the awareness and money raised for kidney cancer, Lift for Life gives Penn State players the chance to bond with fans.
"When we're playing football, the fans don't really see us because we're in our helmets," said Brett Brackett, a sophomore wide receiver and Uplifting Athletes president. "This is a time where fans can interact with their favorite players and know what they look like without a helmet on. It's really nice for the fans."
With the off-field issues that plagued the squad earlier in the year, Brackett and Gmerick agreed the positive publicity would be good for the team, which Brackett said is made up of "a bunch of good guys."
"Sometimes the negative things in the media are really pushed out there a lot," Brackett said. "But these are some of the positive things that we really want to have reflect on us as people and Penn State football players that we really are good people and we really like to help and contribute good to the community."
There are also perks for players involved with Uplifting Athletes. Shirley said because football players must retain a year-round commitment to their sport, they don't get the opportunity other students get to do off-campus internships. By being involved with Uplifting Athletes, players get job experience and professional development running events such as Lift for Life.
Brackett said he is looking forward to participating today despite the amount of work it will be.
"It's a pretty grueling challenge but you could say [it is] fun in a way," Brackett said. "It's definitely exciting because it is a competition. All of us are really big competitors and when you put anything that's competition in front of us everybody's going to be really competitive and try to beat each other."
