30 Days of Giving 2017 – Day 14: SUNY Oswego Honors Those Battling Ovarian Cancer

Participants pose in front of Culkin Hall at SUNY Oswego on Teal Day.

When Totally Teal Day and the fight against ovarian cancer come up for SUNY Oswego, the campus draws inspiration from one of its most giving ever, the late Mary Gosek. Mary was a 34-year computer program analyst at the college and wife of SUNY Oswego men’s hockey coach Ed Gosek.

One thing Mary didn’t give was a single inch to the disease during her years-long battle with it. Mary was passionately devoted to the college’s annual Totally Teal effort, to Hope for Heather and to the annual Teal Night men’s and women’s hockey games.

In the years preceding her death in June, she worked tirelessly to found and see through the early development of Peaceful Remedies, a nonprofit provider of holistic therapies, education and support in a safe and pleasant environment for people dealing with life-threatening illnesses.

Tributes to Mary around the campus and the city of Oswego this fall have taken the form of charitable efforts, athletic competitions and other awareness-raising events that have drawn students, faculty, staff and community residents by the hundreds.

The Teal Night ice hockey games filled SUNY Oswego’s Marano Campus Center arena with loud and proud cheers. The men’s game celebrated a signature memory of Mary the hockey fan — it began with “Mary’s Minute,” the capacity crowd standing and cheering for the first 60 seconds of every period. Following his teal-wearing players’ come-from-behind win that night, The Palladium-Times in Oswego quoted an emotionally drained Ed Gosek, “In her own special way, Mary has influenced (the players) and helped them understand how to face adversity. They saw her at her worst with a smile on her face and she stayed positive.”

30 Days of Giving 2017:

Written by SUNY Oswego

With a student body of nearly 8,000 students, SUNY Oswego is large enough to offer more than 110 programs of study yet small enough for students to form quality relationships with each other and caring faculty.

December 6, 2017