Volleyball squads in the Atlantic 10 Conference will join forces this fall to battle a familiar foe: breast cancer.

Led by the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and 49er head volleyball coach Lisa Marston, each Atlantic 10 program is dedicating one home match in October, which is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, or November to "Dig for the Cure." The event supports the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

As part of Dig for the Cure, individual sponsors can donate a flat amount or pledge money for each dig earned by their team during the match. Funds raised will go directly to the local Koman Foundation affiliate in each school’s community.

This is the fourth year that Charlotte has raised money for the foundation. Under Marston’s leadership, the effort has generated more than $36,000 over the past three years. In 2004, all 14 Conference USA volleyball squads participated and the result was a combined total of more than $22,000. After a move to the Atlantic 10 the following year, another $10,000 was raised as the 49ers partnered with fellow league members from the University of Dayton, Duquesne University and the University of Rhode Island. In addition to each Atlantic 10 team, programs representing Conference USA and other schools in the Charlotte region will participate in the 2006 Dig for a Cure effort.

Marston said she started the program to honor breast cancer survivors like her mother.

"Most every person has been affected in some way by breast cancer, and so many people responded that we decided to expand it and get the rest of the conference involved," she said. "I am really pleased that we have teams involved besides our conference schools."

Ultimately, Marston hopes to develop the program into a fund-raising competition between conferences.

Charlotte has set aside the October 22 match against Rhode Island for the outreach. To make a pledge or donation, contact Marston at ermarsto@email.uncc.edu.

One of the things that attracted softball student-athlete Alisa Burk to Lincoln Memorial University was the school’s hands-on athletic training major. Burk recently had the opportunity to collect some real-life experience in her field when she helped save a football student-athlete’s life.

Burk spent part of this past summer gaining experience working with football student-athletes while assisting the athletic training staff at Union College in Barbourville, Kentucky. Lincoln Memorial has partnered with the school in the past, and this summer athletic training students were invited to stay at Union through preseason workouts.

Burk was under a tent on the practice field August 14 working with a student-athlete when she heard the call for an athletic trainer. A football student-athlete had begun hyperventilating and moments later stopped breathing.

Burk and Clay Butler, the head athletic trainer at Union who also was on hand, swung into action. Burk raced to retrieve the automated external defibrillator (AED) kit, which is used to shock a person once they go into cardiac arrest, while Butler attempted to illicit a response from the student-athlete. Meanwhile, Burk had cut off the player’s jersey and prepared the AED pads when one final attempt to rouse the athlete was successful. The player went from not breathing to hyperventilating to controlled breathing in seconds. Paramedics arrived shortly to take over treatment.

Burk said she was scared, but kept doing what she was taught to do. The experience strengthened her drive to become a certified athletic trainer.

"It was so intense. I was nervous, but all of a sudden I just stopped thinking about everything and just started doing. In that moment, I remembered everything that I had been taught, and I acted," she said. "It was an experience I sort of wish never happened, you know, I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. I’m just happy everything turned out OK. I’m happy I was there to help and grateful my training paid off."

Burk is a two-year letter-winner for the Railsplitter softball squad.