On May 7, 2022, six teams composed of Deerfield students participated in Casey’s Memori- al Cup. Founded in 2018 by the Casey Strale Foundation, the ice hockey tournament has been run- ning for four years in memory of Casey Strale, a young player who passed away from Adrenocortical Carcinoma (ACC). After a long fight with many clinical trials and surgeries, Casey lost his battle to ACC on June 24, 2013, surround- ed by his friends and family. ACC is extremely rare and affects one to two people out of 1.7 million and it is even rarer for children as young as Casey. It is so rare that CHOC’s Children Hospital, where Casey was treated, had never treated any- one with this cancer. It is difficult to acquire adrenal tumors for the purpose of analysis. In the hopes of understanding the molecular basis of adrenal cancer and identifying new therapies to treat the rare disease, Casey’s family collaborated with Translational Genom- ics Research Institute (TGen), a non-profit organization that specializes in research and advanced testing, to fundraise for cancer research, which is crucial to battling all forms of cancer. TGen uses genomics data for the purpose of recognizing different mutations in ACC tumors. The Casey Strale ACC Research Fund Page says that the mutations “may help researchers to design new diagnostic tests and therapies to treat ACC.”
Sara Ito-Bagshaw ’22, who grew up with Strale in Irvine, Cal- ifornia and introduced the compe- tition to the Deerfield community, explained that “[Casey] was some- one who was part of my commu- nity back home. He used to play at a rink that I had always played at growing up, for both roller and ice hockey.” Casey was a former employee at Irvine Inline, an ice and inline rink.
To Ito-Bagshaw, the ability to spread awareness will ultimately facilitate additional fundraising efforts to promote further cancer research and spread awareness for ACC across a wide demographic.
Ninth-Grade Dean Heather Brown, who assisted Ito-Bagshaw in understanding her goals and bringing Casey’s Memorial Cup to Deerfield, shared that fine tuning the delivery of the message was imperative to Casey’s Memorial Cup success.
In addition to spreading aware- ness, Ito-Bagshaw’s efforts to com- memorate Strale’s memory act as a reminder of how philanthropy can become a part of daily life at Deerfield. Casey’s Memorial Cup provided students an opportunity to serve the wider community and Deerfield’s motto: “Be Worthy of Our Heritage.”