Friday night lights have a new focus in Crown Point this week. Crown Point High School varsity football will face off in their home opener against Chicago Public School’s Taft High School on August 25 at 7 p.m. However, the opposing teams will be promoting a single color: orange, the color for Leukemia awareness.

Crown Point coach Craig Buzea and Taft HS principal Mark Grishaber are both survivors of Acute Myeloid Leukemia. Both received life saving transplants and are cancer free today. When coach Buzea went through his cancer treatment, Grishaber contacted him to provide encouragement. He told Buzea that one day their schools would play a game to raise awareness for Leukemia. Friday’s game brings that promise to reality.

Proceeds from last week’s pre-sale orange t-shirts supported Be The Match, a leading organization in bone marrow transplantation. Be the Match connects patients with donors for life-saving marrow or blood stem cell transplants. 70% of patients diagnosed with leukemia, lymphoma and other life-threatening diseases who need transplants do not have a fully matched donor in their family. While the t-shirts are sold out, fans are asked to wear their own orange shirts to the game. While there, they can also sign up to become donors through Be The Match.

Individuals who would like to donate online to the CPHS football fundraiser for Be the Match can go to https://bit.ly/45gLGsr.