The Oswego State Lakers and coaches of all sports on campus participated in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Wednesday afternoon at Laker Soccer Field.

Several Oswego professors and staff, including Oswego State President Deborah Stanley, have taken the plunge under the ice water and donated already this summer.

It was President Stanley, who, in her ice bucket challenge video, requested that all of the athletes get together in one group, wear their team uniforms and commit to this challenge to raise awareness for ALS.

Immediately after the Oswego men’s soccer game versus Morrisville, athletes of all Oswego sports, wearing their uniforms as President Stanley requested, climbed onto the student bleachers next to the soccer field. They proceeded to be hosed down with ice water provided by a water-reel typically used to water the grass of the fields near Laker Hall.

Accompanying them was Jerald Woolfolk, vice president for Student Affairs and Enrollment Management, who was personally doused with water just before the     Laker athletes.

“It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be,” Woolfolk said. “I think all of this is great and it was special to have all of the athletes there with me.”

“We’re not just doing the Ice Bucket Challenge, but we are also taking up donations to send to ALS.” Woolfolk said.

According to the ALS association’s official website, $111.6 million has been donated due to the Ice Bucket Challenge as of Sept. 10.

“I do not know how much we are going to send, but whatever we do it will be great,” Woolfolk said.

Vice President Woolfolk challenged Student Association President Tucker Sholtes to complete the challenge and donate.

President Stanley’s chief of staff, Kristi Eck, who was there for the out of town President Stanley, was impressed with the event and its results.

“I think that the gathering of all the athletes is something that doesn’t happen often and is really cool to see,” Eck said. “I know President Stanley really wanted to be here for this and is glad that the Lakers were able to put this together.”

According to their website, “amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as “Lou Gehrig’s Disease” after the Hall of Fame Yankee who was diagnosed with the illness, “is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Motor neurons reach from the brain to the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body. The progressive degeneration of the motor neurons in ALS eventually leads to their death. When the motor neurons die, the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost. With voluntary muscle action progressively affected, patients in the later stages of the disease may become totally paralyzed.”

The original ice bucket challenge has been used before for things unrelated to ALS, but according to the ALS official website it was the people impacted by the disease, Jeanette and Anthony Senerchia, who made the challenge go viral for the disease beginning in mid-July.

If you would like to donate to the ALS Association, or learn more about the disease, visit www.alsa.org.