This fall, the Bowdoin Student Athlete Advisory Committee (BSAAC) has focused its efforts on fundraising for the New England Cancer Specialists, a top cancer care hospital in the region. BSAAC’s initiative aims to support individuals battling cancer by providing resources and care. Athletes accomplish this by promoting the campaign and encouraging fans, alumni and community members to help make a difference.

The collaboration with the New England Cancer Specialists is the first time BSAAC has executed an initiative of this scale.

Men’s soccer player Keito Ishibashi ’27 came up with the idea to partner with New England Cancer Specialists, as he felt there weren’t enough cancer awareness initiatives aside from women’s volleyball’s Dig Pink game. Ishibashi wanted to create a program that allowed all athletes to raise awareness by wearing accessories and having special games where spectators are encouraged to donate.

“[Cancer awareness] was always a big part of my athletic career, such as wearing pink [for Breast Cancer awareness] in October or doing something to demonstrate our support for the cancer survivors and their families,” Ishibashi said. “There wasn’t a clear-cut idea but rather just something I noticed through my first year at Bowdoin and wanted to change.”

Ishibashi approached Anyi Sun ’26, a member of the women’s ice hockey team and BSAAC DEI committee chair, with his idea this summer.

“It’s always good to raise awareness and help the community,” Sun said. “Personally, I want to definitely make an impact here at Bowdoin. So, seeing this opportunity, I was like, ‘Oh, this is great,’ and we [BSAAC] want to involve our Athletics Department.… I feel like this [initiative] is good for that.”

Typically, BSAAC will use its Instagram account to communicate its initiatives. This fall, they also had the unique opportunity to make a commercial. Director of Athletics Tim Ryan suggested that the group create a commercial to air during live-streamed games. The commercial featured  various fall athletes talking about the New England Cancer Specialists, as well as the Snell Foundation, which works closely with the cancer specialists for fundraising.

Owen Weller ’27, a member of the men’s swim and dive team, who is on the BSAAC DEI committee, helped produce the commercial.

“I thought [the initiative] was really cool,” Weller said. I think it’s really cool that as a school, we can come together, raise support and raise awareness for a disease that impacts so many.”

Ishibashi’s idea of wearing accessories has been a hit among student-athletes and fans of Bowdoin athletics. The only roadblock BSAAC faced was navigating making accessories “legal.” Accessories had to follow regulations on the field, court or course.

BSAAC solved the problem by providing a multitude of fun accessory options for players. For now, all the accessories are pink to bring awareness to breast cancer.

The field hockey and soccer teams wore pink bands on their wrists or shin guards. The cross country team will wear pink wristbands at their next home meet, the rugby and tennis teams have hair ribbons and wristbands and the football team has helmet stickers.

Moving forward, the BSAAC will section initiatives into fall, winter and spring sport seasons. While there are many community-based initiatives to choose from, BSAAC aims to make its future work more collaborative with the student body, straying away from primarily online communication and focusing on in-person outreach.

“I think that what the BSAAC likes to focus on is bridging the gap, not only between different student athletes, but also [between] student-athletes and non-student-athletes on campus,” Weller said.