Color is the first thing you notice at a sporting event.
This team wears blue. That team wears red.
Color is everywhere. It's there in ribbons and wristbands, banners and signs, garment bags and cover-ups - and sometimes in the hair dye and face paint of the fully committed.
Saturday's swim meet between the girls' teams from Cherry Hill West and Washington Township was like that.
Only different.
Only better.
This was the "Pink and Purple Meet," and those colors symbolized far more than opposing sides in a scholastic competition at Camden County Tech.
The Minutemaids wore pink tie-dyed T-shirts on the pool deck and pink caps in the water to show their support for breast cancer survivors and research.
The Lady Lions wore purple tie-dyed T-shirts and purple caps to show their support for pancreatic cancer survivors and research.
"This is more than swimming," Washington Township coach Jess Slates said. "This is life. We're swimming to show we're aware of their struggles. We're swimming to show our support. We're swimming to show we care."
It was a great event, part of a double-dual (boys and girls) meet between Olympic Conference rivals.
Cherry Hill West won the girls' meet, 92.5-77.5, but the only number that really mattered was the $418 raised from donations.
Even that was literally a drop in a bucket. The important thing was the camaraderie, and the colors.
"Just about everybody on both teams has somebody that has been affected by this," Cherry Hill West junior Amy Stelmaszyk said. "It's like we're all in this together. It takes a team to win a meet and it takes a team to do something like this."
The idea for the meet came from the Washington Township team after a close family member of one of the swimmers was diagnosed with breast cancer in the spring.
Slates reached out to Cherry Hill West coach Scott Sweeten, who suggested adding the purple to the pink since he was close with someone who has been battling pancreatic cancer.
Both teams have set up Web sites for donations, and have promoted awareness in school and during previous competitions.
"I've been amazed at how many people on the staff at West who have told me stories of family members and friends who have been impacted by this," Sweeten said.
Washington Township junior Gina Panchelli said the team rallied around the notion of using a competition to raise money and awareness.
"It's like we're not just swimming to beat the other team," Panchelli said. "We're swimming to beat breast cancer and pancreatic cancer."
Washington Township senior captain Lauren Lacovara said the event was "personal" for nearly every girl on both teams because nearly every family has been impacted by cancer.
"So many different people have been affected," Lacovara said. "We wanted to do something as a team. We wanted to swim for the people who can't swim."
In the big picture, these sporting events don't matter much. The times and scores, the standings and rankings, they all fall away.
Sports is important only in what it teaches and reveals and reinforces - teamwork and discipline, commitment and responsibility, the value of personal sacrifice for the greater good.
When you look beyond the games, you see opportunities like the one that the Minutemaids and Lady Lions created and seized during a high school swimming meet.
Outside it was a clear day. But it was January gray.
Inside, it was all pink and purple and bright with hope.
Contact staff writer Phil Anastasia at 856-779-3223 or panastasia@phillynews.com