How Beth Torina’s Passion for Cancer Awareness Started a Teal Movement

“When someone you love is diagnosed with cancer, you just feel helpless and like you need to do something, anything.”

LSU head coach Beth Torina sits in her office, reflecting as she makes that statement. A purple-and-teal glove and a photo with her three daughters and her mother Betty, all clad in teal t-shirts, are on the shelf behind her.

Betty walks into the office as Beth speaks. She’s brought a few things, including a message for her daughter. “I haven’t even had a chance to tell you congratulations,” Betty says. “That’s really awesome, Beth.”

She’s talking about the Humanitarian Award that’s presented annually by the National Fastpitch Coaches Association. Torina was recently announced as the 2024 recipient for her work with the Geaux Teal Foundation in raising ovarian cancer awareness.

Every spring, college softball teams don teal jerseys and uniform accents, with the set aim of raising awareness for ovarian cancer and its symptoms. What began as Torina’s passion project has now become a nationwide movement.

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Torina was the head coach at Florida International in 2010 when her mom was diagnosed. The frustrating feeling of helplessness drove her to do something. Anything. 

But what?

She came up with the idea of her FIU team wearing teal jerseys for a game, then auctioning off the uniforms with the proceeds benefiting ovarian cancer research.

“That was where teal really started,” Torina said.

After its debut in 2010, when the 2011 season rolled around, a now-annual Teal Game was on FIU’s calendar.

By the time Torina interviewed for the LSU head coaching job in the summer of 2011, “teal” – the one-word moniker that has grown to describe all aspects of Torina’s chosen cause – had become such a big deal, she recalls the topic being broached during her initial visit to Baton Rouge.

“It came up in my interview,” Torina shared with a laugh. “I knew they had done pink [jerseys] in the past, so I asked them if we could do teal. It was important to me because I felt like we were really doing something good and had such a platform with the sport of softball.”

Known for their iconic purple and gold uniforms, LSU softball did don teal for the first time in 2012. It brought an entirely new city and program into the teal fold and almost immediately spawned beyond being just a game on the schedule.

Torina, her mother Betty, and a family friend joined together with another group to form the Geaux Teal Foundation. A non-profit in Louisiana, Geaux Teal funds ovarian cancer research and provides grants to ovarian cancer patients undergoing treatment.

Beginning in 2013, following the official establishment of Geaux Teal as a registered non-profit, Torina and the group began putting on the Geaux Teal Ovarian Cancer Awareness walk. A community event and the non-profit’s primary fundraiser, the walk has become an annual event.

In 2019, more than 1,000 people participated, walking a roughly 2.5-mile route that always starts and ends at Tiger Park. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the group organized a virtual walk, with participants walking around their neighborhoods or at their homes. The 2024 edition of the walk included more than 900 participants.

Ovarian cancer awareness has spread throughout college softball since Torina’s teal movement began. Every year, SEC softball teams play on All for Alex weekend, named for and honoring the memory of former Mississippi State player Alex Wilcox, who passed away from ovarian cancer at age 18 in 2018.

Geaux Teal provides the teams with the teal warmup shirts that they wear during that weekend. It’s a part of how the organization and Torina have chosen to use the platform in front of them to raise crucial awareness for the disease.

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With three young daughters who are all budding athletes, a perennial contender of an SEC softball program to shepherd, and expectations to meet on an annual basis, Torina still finds time – or makes time, when she has to – to do what needs doing for “teal”. 

Along with her mom and the same friend that joined them to originally form Geaux Teal, the trio runs the foundation’s regular operations, doing whatever needs doing to further the cause of raising awareness and making a difference in the fight against ovarian cancer.