RUGBY PLAYERS BATTLE CANCER

They may be strong, burly players on the field, but the members of the Montclair Rugby Club showed their soft side recently when they volunteered to get their heads shaved at a fundraiser to help cure childhood cancers.

Organized by club member Jack Piel of West Caldwell, the Montclair team members collected donations and then got their heads shaved. Team members who went bald for a good cause were Jim Kinney of West Orange, Kevin Kinney of West Caldwell, Joe Kinney of West Mil ford and Peter Del Vecchio of Nutley . They were helped out by John Terzo, owner of JT's Barber Shop in Verona .

The event took place on the Seton
Hall University campus between games by the Seton Hall University Rugby Club and the rugby team from New York's Stony Brook University .

Kevin Kinney said his team raised around $11,000 that will be donated to the St. Baldrick's Foundation, a charity that helps fund research on childhood cancers. The team raised an additional $3,000 for the foundation in March. "It's just a good cause," Kinney said. "We've known a lot of people over the years who had cancer."

The
Montclair club wasn't the only team to participate in the fundraiser. Other teams from the Metropolitan New York Rugby Football Union also donated to St. Baldrick's. In all, 30 people volunteered to have their heads shaved on Sept. 17, billed as the day "halfway to St. Patrick's Day."

The charity was started in 2000 by three insurance executives from
New York City who turned their annual St. Patrick's Day party into a fundraiser, shaving their heads in solidarity with children who have cancer.

Kinney said his team would pitch in again in the future. "It's going to be an annual event," he said. The Montclair club was founded in 1976. It sponsors two men's teams and a team made up of high school students from Essex County .