A Week at Wake: Hit the Bricks

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Hit the Bricks, you may recall, was postponed due to rain, and it turns out the “exec team” made the right call. Wednesday’s weather is nothing short of glorious.

The students who sparked the Brian Piccolo (’65, P ’87, ’89) Cancer Research Fund Drive back in 1980 could not have predicted the fundraising juggernaut it has become, with money raised through dunk tanks, fitness classes, pickleball — all leading up to the grand finale, “Hit the Bricks,” a daylong relay race around Hearn Plaza started in 2003.

This year’s student directors, seniors Theo Berson, Matt Winokur and Graham Whaley, started out as HTB “ambassadors” when they were freshmen. They organized their Babcock Residence Hall neighbors and friends, more than 100 students in all, into a team that raised $15,000. Last year, they added freshman dorms as a competitive fundraising category. (Maybe not coincidentally, Berson and Winokur are entrepreneurship minors.)

This year, they have focused on recentering the event around Piccolo, a Demon Deacon and NFL football star, whose life was cut short at age 26 by cancer and whose story was captured in the movie “Brian’s Song.” So they reached out to the National Football League for a donation and invited Piccolo’s daughter.

Traci Piccolo Dolby (’89) spends the day walking around the Quad with a team of “’80s Baity’s Ladies” and her mother, Joy Piccolo O’Connell (P ’87, ’89, ’97). Dolby’s son switched from hockey to football in college in honor of his grandfather, says the proud mother. She and her friends reminisce about Piccolo fundraisers of the past as they loop the Quad: “Remember when the Dekes did Rub-a-Dub-Dub, where they sat in a hot tub?”

Mike Ford (’72), a student life administrator and campus leader for 36 years who has come out to watch, remembers one freshman at Hit the Bricks, around 2015, taking it all in and then exclaiming, “This is college!” 

Ford, whose mother, First Lady Betty Ford, chose to go public in 1974 with her breast cancer diagnosis and treatment to raise awareness, agrees. “All these different groups, students, staff, faculty and even alumni come together. And in the spirit of Pro Humanitate. It’s our core. And that brings me great joy. … This is all just volunteers who are trying to beat this disease and do it as a community.”

As the sun wanes, people make their way to the starting line for one final, silent walk around the Quad to remember those who fought, or are fighting, cancer. It’s a rare moment of complete quiet. The Piccolos and student organizers lead the way. 

They stop in front of Wait Chapel. “If life with cancer teaches us anything, it’s the beauty of the present moment,” Chaplain Chris Donald tells the crowd.

Cancer survivor Raegan Burden, a visiting assistant professor, speaks next: “Thank you for running and walking and jogging because, right now, some cannot,” she says. “Thank you for contributing to much needed research. We won’t heal without it.” 

The sun behind Wait Chapel’s columns casts long rays of light across the rapt audience as Traci Piccolo Dolby reminds the crowd how much the fund has grown. “It’s been a long time since this all began back in 1980, when I came with my mom to accept the check from the very first fund drive, which, believe it or not, was about $3,500,” she says. While the money raised today will be a hundredfold, that first fund drive “was no less meaningful for us.”

As a student here, Dolby and her fellow Fideles society sisters raised money with a battle of the bands at Baity’s Backstreet Music Garden. She remembers watching “Brian’s Song” with her friends, passing a beach towel back and forth to wipe their tears. “Having lost my dad at just 3 years old, I didn’t have a lot of memories,” she says. “I felt like part of him was here with me every day.” 

Dolby thanks today’s 2,200-some participants. “I do believe that’s the reason he was taken from us — so that we could do what we’re doing today to help all of these other people,” she says of her father. Studio art and economics major Kyan Patel (’27) presents her with a painting of Piccolo wearing his No. 44 Wake Forest football jersey. More tears.

Finally, the tally the crowd’s been waiting for: Hit the Bricks has raised a record-breaking $360,840!