Lupe Izzo, wife of men’s basketball head coach Tom Izzo, women’s basketball head coach Suzy Merchant, as well as and former MSU athletes and a number of children modeled both formal and casual wear from five designers.

The beneficiary was a foundation founded by Aitch called The Aitch Foundation, dedicated to early cancer detection. The idea for the foundation stemmed from the destructive toll cancer had taken on her family.

Aside from the models showing off their Spartan swag as they strutted down the runway, one of the highlights of the evening was a set of motivational speeches from three speakers who have been affected by cancer.

A daughter’s graduation
Karen Keane, mother of former MSU women’s basketball player Kalisha Keane, was diagnosed with uterine cancer when she was 28 years old.

After 18 years of battling the disease with chemotherapy and multiple surgeries, Keane was declared cancer free one month ago.

There was one dream that kept her motivated throughout her struggle with cancer, seeing her daughter graduate from college. This past month, her dream came true.

“The fact that I was able to see my daughter Kalisha graduate when there was a possibility that I wouldn’t have been able to, was a real important thing for me,” Keane said. “It was a great inspiration to see her walk through the Breslin (Center). It really was.”

While seeing her daughter graduate was an inspiration to Karen Keane, it was her speech that inspired the other people in attendance.

One of the people touched by the speech was Kalisha Keane’s coach, Merchant.

“For me (the best moment) was when Karen Keane got up there and spoke,” Merchant said. “That’s Kalisha’s mom and going through that with Kal and knowing what she was going through as a player, she was worried about her mom. It was really touching.”

Karen Keane hoped her speech would leave one lasting message with the people in the audience.

“I just wanted to let people know that if you have heart and fight hard to make a difference, you can,” she said. “I hope by telling my story that one day, when I sit down with my grandchildren that they have no idea what cancer is because we’ve found a cure.”

A letter to his mom
Former MSU running back TJ Duckett, had a speech prepared for the show. But as he walked to the runway, he decided to switch things up.
Instead of giving the speech he had written, he decided to say an impromptu letter to his mom, a victim of cancer.

“I didn’t want to just say another talk,” Duckett said. “This is something my mother would have loved to have been at, and I just wanted to spread how I feel and I guess I felt that was the best way I could express it.”

Jason Colthorp, an anchor for WILX-TV, hosted the fashion show and said Duckett’s words made him think of his own mother, who also died from cancer.

“I had to turn around and look outside and walk away because I was tearing up, that’s how much it moved me,” Colthorp said. “I think about my mom all the time and I lost her to cancer.”

Aitch believes Duckett’s speech might have been the defining moment of the show.

“(The most moving moment was) when Lupe (Izzo) cried because of what TJ said, the way it touched her,” Aitch said. “She’s been through a lot with her mother and for that to touch her that was a big thing. When he started talking about his mother I think that was probably a big turning point.”

Getting Back On The Field
Arthur Ray went from being the biggest player on the field to being the biggest kid in the pediatric cancer ward when he was diagnosed with bone cancer at the age of 17, a moment that changed his life.

Ray, a communications junior, came to MSU as a highly recruited offensive lineman but never was able to take the field for the Spartans.

“I was on the top of the world in my own head,” Ray said. “I was getting ready to come up here and take it one step at a time getting on the field and the whole thing changed.”

As Ray hit his lowest point, sitting in his hospital bed alone, a 10-year-old brain cancer patient named Chris brought a Nintendo-64 into his room.

“Everything was starting to crash around me,” he said. “My mom had left the hospital and I was just sitting there and he rolled in and him being ten years old, he’d been in the hospital two years.”

As their friendship grew, Ray began to have an appreciation for how tough Chris really was, something that motivated him to overcome his disease.

“I was in the hospital a year, but for different periods of time,” Ray said. “He was there for Thanksgiving, Christmas, every holiday away from his family. It really humbled me and let me know that if he’s fighting and he’s good, I can be good.”

Ray’s perseverance struck a chord with former MSU basketball player Travis Walton.

“Seeing Arthur Ray and everything he was able to overcome going through cancer, it was unbelievable,” Walton said. “That’s a remarkable story.”

For Ray’s former teammate Greg Jones, Ray put a face to a disease he hadn’t known much about.

“When I think about cancer he’s the first guy I think about,” Jones said. “He was like my first actual close person that I knew that had it and it was kind of rough. Realizing that it could happen to me, it could happen to anybody, no matter what age you are.”

After entering remission this year, Ray finally got to live his dream and step out onto the Spartan Stadium field for the 2011 spring game.

Ray’s return to the game he loves is an accomplishment he credits to his faith and will.

“(It was) amazing, amazing, a second chance,” he said. “I got the chance to do what I love to do, which is play football.”

Who wore it best
After a night of emotional and moving speeches, the only thing left to determine was whether the men or the women worked the runway best. The vote was split.

“I think the guys did pretty good,” Jones said, rating himself a “strong” seven out of 10. “I’ve got to go with the guys, but I think everybody did a great job overall.”

Merchant gave the edge to the ladies, although she admits her time on the runway was a quick blur.

“I don’t know, maybe I’m a little off base, but I thought we did pretty good,” she said. “I was in the last set so I was too nervous to pay attention.”

Current MSU basketball player Draymond Green said it was simply too close to call.

“The women worked the runway, they definitely worked it, but the guys looked great up there as well,” he said. “They showed their swag and it was great.

While men’s basketball coach Tom Izzo wouldn’t cast a deciding vote, he did say the night’s biggest winner was Aitch.

“I give Lauren a lot of credit for stepping outside the box and trying to do something a little different,” Izzo said. “Instead of a golf outing, which is good, instead of a banquet, which is good, she stepped outside the box and had the courage to do something a little different and I think it was a huge success.”