The creation of The Man In The Pink Hat started back in 2013 after my beautiful boy, Caspar, had been diagnosed with cancer. During one of his chemo treatments, I learnt 
that the treatment for dogs with cancer was the exact same treatment as humans with cancer. We were also told that 90% of dogs responded well to the treatment. Watching him go through chemo and seeing how sick he got was heart breaking. Sadly, Caspar, was one of the 10% of dogs that didn’t respond well to treatment and passed away.
This sparked something inside of me to try to make a difference and help to find a cure for this horrible disease. My thought process was if we could find a cure for human cancer the we would also have a cure for our beloved fur babies. Not long afterwards, the school I was at held a colour for cure crazy hair day. So I challenged the students in the school to raise $1200 for the cause. Their reward for achieving this target was that I would dye a giant pink ribbon into my hair. With that incentive, the students achieved this target and being a man of my word, I dyed a giant pink ribbon into my hair. This pink ribbon lasted 4 months in my hair. After a well deserved hair cut, I thought that there would have to be a better way than a dyed pink ribbon in my hair to continue to show my support and raise awareness to help find a cure for cancer. This is when the idea of wearing a pink hat instead came on to the scene.
So, I went out and purchased myself a pink Nike hat. However, it wasn’t until I was at tennis training one night while wearing my pink hat, when Coach Jennifer called our in her wonderful French accent “Oh it is always great to see the man in the pink hat at training.” From that moment on the name stuck. Over a short period of time, the name The Man in the Pink Hat gained more popularity both on and off the tennis court, both in Australia and Overseas.
The Pink Hat became such a large recognisable part of me. It didn’t matter if being cheered on from a hotel balcony while on a tennis court during a tournament in Fiji, being greeted at the airport, or being spotted outside a 7 / 11 store in Kowloon in Hong Kong, the Pink Hat was a give away of who and where I was. In 2018, I was humbled and honoured by my local tennis club, when they presented The Man in the Pink Hat with his very special carpark spot.
That is how The Man in the Pink Hat came into existence. What the future will hold for The Man in the Pink Hat is anyone’s guess. However, the Pink Hat story will continue on and always helping to raise awareness to find a cure for cancer.
While on that topic, I would like to finish up this page by taking the opportunity to say if you happen to see someone collecting for the Cancer Council anywhere around the world, please contribute if you can. They say 1 in 3 people have been effected by cancer. Together we can make a difference and defeat this disease.
Thank you
The Man in the Pink Hat.
The Man In The Pink Hat 