Joe Lee doesn't want people thinking pink for a day. He'd like breast-cancer awareness to be an everyday fight.

That's why the Lenoir City High School girls' basketball coach will have his team wear pink uniforms that also feature the breast-cancer awareness ribbon for the 2008-09 season.

Hall of Fame games begin Nov. 18, and season's official start is Nov. 24.

"I was just brainstorming and thinking of ideas," he said. "I remembered Rutgers coming here last year (against Tennessee) and wearing pink jerseys.

"People do it for one-day events. I wondered what it would be like for the whole year. Every time we play, it's going to bring that back to people's minds.

"When I talked to the girls about it, they were excited about doing it."

One Lenoir City player's mother is a breast cancer survivor. Another's mother passed away from cancer.

"She didn't die from breast cancer," said Lee, "but that's where it started."

With the help from the Lenoir City booster club and from Smitty's Specialty Prints, located a quarter mile from the school, the Lady Panthers will wear pink jerseys on the road and white jerseys with pink numbers at home - as well as "special socks."

Lee said he asked the TSSAA for clearance to wear the pink uniforms at home, too, but was denied. Regardless, the orange and black typically worn will be boxed up.

"I'm hoping that every time we go play on the road and we go out in those pink uniforms and people see the breast cancer logo on it, whatever community we're in ... that it's going to do what we wanted it to do," said Lee.

Mothers of team members will wear pink T-shirts, and Lee said there will be collections taken at the game and special-edition T-shirts being sold.

Members of the jayvee team and freshmen team will also don pink uniforms this season.

"I just felt like it was something very special, and I didn't want to leave any of the girls out," said Lee. "Because when it's something of this magnitude, I felt like everyone should be involved."