RENO, Nev. – When the Nevada women's basketball team hosts Boise State Wednesday night, it will mark the team's annual Play4Kay pink game.
 
The Wolf Pack and Broncos tip off at 6:30 p.m. from Lawlor Events Center and all fans who wear pink to the game will get in for free. This year's pink game will be different than what fans have grown accustomed to seeing in recent memory with no pink treadmill and no silent auction. Instead, fans are asked to make a pledge in the Play4Kay National Free Throw Challenge, which raises money for the Kay Yow Cancer Fund.
 
Sponsored by John and Sue Gibbs, the Play4Kay National Free Throw Challenge is open to anyone and everyone as fans from colleges and universities across the country pledge a donation with each free throw your team hits. Fans can also enter a one-time donation as well. So far over $22,000 has been raised for the Kay Yow Cancer Fund.
 
This year marks the ninth anniversary of the passing of legendary coach Kay Yow, for whom the initiative began. Play4Kay, the largest fundraising initiative of the Kay Yow Cancer Fund, has featured many sports, groups and organizations hosting fundraisers for the past nine years. These fundraisers allow those in the basketball community to take part in the efforts simply by doing what they love, which is playing or watching basketball.
 
After being in remission for 17 years, Coach Yow's cancer returned during the 2004-05 basketball season and the "pink phenomenon" was born. Play4Kay was originally titled Think Pink, then Pink Zone, and now Play4Kay. Women's basketball teams from all divisions across the country began wearing pink in honor of Coach Yow and those battling cancer and in 2007 the movement resulted in the establishment of the Kay Yow Cancer Fund.
 
Coach Yow served as a head coach in collegiate women's basketball for 38 seasons between Elon and North Carolina State and is one of only six Division I women's basketball head coaches to reach 700 wins in their career. Throughout her coaching career she made 20 appearances in the NCAA Tournament, which included 11 trips to the Sweet 16 and an appearance in the Elite Eight and the Final Four in 1998 as head coach of NC State. Additionally, Yow was one of nine coaches to help lead USA Basketball to Olympic gold in the 1988 games in Seoul, South Korea. She was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2000.
 
For tickets to this game or any of the remaining four home games, call (775) 348-PACK or visit NevadaWolfPack.com.