Scott Hamilton & Friends skating event to battle cancer

Scott Hamilton always will be known as an Olympic gold medalist.

Another part of his legacy is establishing a place for figure skaters to earn a living after their competitive careers when he created the Stars on Ice tour in the 1980s.

What Hamilton, a cancer survivor, is doing now with his foundation (ScottCARES.org) could dwarf all of his other achievements. His fifth annual Scott Hamilton & Friends event at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville on Nov. 21 will focus on the fight to conquer Glioblastoma, a particularly deadly form of cancer.

The show, which will feature a bevy of Olympic skaters, including champions Katia Gordeeva and Ilia Kulik, plus such musical stars as Lady A, Grace Potter, Maren Morris, For King & Country, and Cece Winans, also will pay tribute to Michael Busbee, the Nashville songwriter, record producer, publisher and instrumentalist who passed away in 2019 from the disease.

"The statistics are getting worse for people with cancer," Hamilton says. "They were trending better but COVID denied people the ability to get the care they needed. It's been a pretty rugged year for people trying to get through cancer."

The show's focus on Glioblastoma is two-pronged, inspired by both Busbee and Scott Williams, an Arkansan who reached out to Hamilton's organization as he was going through treatment.

"Scott heard about me and picked up my book, `The Great Eight,' and decided he wanted to help us raise money for Glioblastoma brain cancer research," Hamilton says. "He wanted to ride a bicycle the length of the Natchez Trace Parkway, 444 miles. We thought, `What in the world?' Scott felt he was called for this."

Hamilton put Williams in touch with a fellow cyclist working within the organization, and the two of them completed the trip on time despite running into obstacles that included a tornado.

"Scott was bringing us something powerful and unique," Hamilton says, noting that they received donations from 27 states and three countries. "He brought us a focus on a form of cancer that really has no hope, but he gave us hope. He gave us an understanding that with that tireless hope you could accomplish remarkable things."

Busbee's family and many of his artists readily got involved in the concert/skating show. Proceeds will fund Glioblastoma research through the Scott Hamilton CARES Foundation dedicated to changing the future of cancer by funding advanced, innovative research that treats the cancer while sparing the patient.