For more than 15 years, Premier Girls Fastpitch CEO Dan Hay has joined the John Wayne Cancer Foundation in its fight against the disease that claimed the life of the iconic actor in 1979. During the league’s 2023 National Championships in July, Hay will present the Foundation with a $65,000 check, which brings Premier Girls Fastpitch’s lifetime donations to more than $1 million.

The check was presented on the Opening Day of the National Championships in Huntington Beach,California, where Premier Girls Fastpitch is based. Ethan Wayne, Marisa Wayne, and Anita La Cava Swift were on-site to accept the donation. In 2022, another $65,000 donation was accepted at the National Championships by Patrick Wayne and Anita LaCava Swift. As a result, Premier Girls’ Fastpitch was awarded a grant-naming opportunity to celebrate its years of dedication to fighting cancer in John Wayne’s name. The Premier Girls Fastpitch Research Grant is funding the breast cancer research of Dr. Maggie DiNome at Duke University.

"For over the past decade and half, Dan Hay and his company, Premier Girls Fastpitch, has been strikingout cancer with every pitch,” said Ethan Wayne, director of the John Wayne Cancer Foundation. “Donors like Dan allow us to continue to lead the search for a cure for cancer with courage, strength and grit by funding pioneering cancer research.”