CLEVELAND, OH - February 16, 2010 - Oscar Robertson and Jerry West, co-captains of the 1960 United States Olympic gold medal basketball team, and 2008 United States Olympic gold medal basketball team co-captains, LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony, will be honored in a pregame ceremony at center court just prior to tipoff of the Cavaliers vs. Nuggets game this Thursday night, February 18th at 8 p.m. in Cleveland at Quicken Loans Arena. The game will be nationally televised on TNT.
2010 marks the 50 year anniversary of the gold medal won by the United States men's basketball team at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Italy. The 1960 squad put on one of the most dominant basketball performances in Olympic history and finished a perfect 8-0, outscoring their opponents by an average of over 42 points per game. Robertson averaged 17.0 points per game and West averaged 13.8 points per game.
At the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China, the United States men's basketball team also went 8-0, defeating their opponents by an average of over 27 points on their way to another gold medal. James averaged 15.5 points per game and Anthony averaged 11.5 points per game.
The special presentation ceremony with Robertson, West, Anthony and James is also helping raise money and awareness for an important men's health issue - prostate cancer. Four donors to the Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF) will present each of the four athletes with their commemorative award (a custom fabricated, one-of-a-kind sculpture of the year of their Olympic gold medal created by Milgo Industrial, the official licensee of NBA fine metalwork pieces) as part of the night's recognition program. The PCF donors bid for the privilege to present the awards, contributing $300,000 for PCF-sponsored research. The auction was held at the foundation's annual New York Dinner this past December. That event raised a total of $4.7 million.About the Prostate Cancer Foundation
The Prostate Cancer Foundation is the world's largest philanthropic source of support for prostate cancer research focused on discovering better treatments and a cure for prostate cancer. Founded in 1993, the PCF has raised nearly $400 million and provided funding to more than 1,500 research projects at nearly 200 institutions worldwide. The PCF also advocates for greater awareness of prostate cancer and more governmental research funds. PCF advocacy has helped produce a 20-fold increase in government funding for prostate cancer since 1994. More information about prostate cancer and the PCF can be found at www.pcf.org.