Tribal Breakthroughs
Readers of the previous post, I think belong to one of two camps: the entertained and the annoyed/offended. To the former, I'd say there is plenty more pitter-patter to recount (like Longstride's view on the transmigration of souls or Dutch's claims that his existence is really the government's response to my failure to pay my taxes), but I am going to table those. To the latter, well, I don't like your attitude. Nevertheless, suffice it to say that I love spending time with my people. The intellectual stimulation that our conversations can induce. These wild ideas we come up with together are memories of a discovery you will share forever, and if they are somewhat decent thoughts, hopefully we’ve applied or adhered to them in some way or the other. Pude and I came up with terminology for such moments, when a light is shown to the both of you--it’s the initial instance of exposure. And these discoveries themselves, are tribal breakthroughs.
I did play in college baseball games for Thiel College in 2012 which, looking back, is special. My sophomore year, first year back after cancer was fairly average. That fall, after about three or four months off chemo, I hit about .300 in every-other-day action. However, the year was filled with plenty of growing pains. It was damaging to play at that level at that point; I played through much more pain than I should have. I was so excited to be out there competing, and I refused to back off when I needed to. While the odds were against me, I wasn’t going to let the pain prevent me from playing college baseball in honor of all the kids who are stricken with this terrible disease and never get the opportunity to do so. I’ll never forget what it felt like to dive into third after legging out a triple on a ball hit to the right field warning track in Florida—only a year removed moping around in the Pennsylvania cold. This was the same Ft. Meyers I was seeing on the TV screen in my hospital room.
That season was successful, considering how much I learned. I really got a feel for how to manage my body. Playing without a fibula in my right leg is a lot different than doing so with one, so my preparations had to also alter from the norm. My teammate Brock really helped me to understand ways to stay strong with less tension on that leg. Brock was an absolute freak of nature—a beast in the gym. Additionally, there was plenty to learn from other guys like Eric King and Ryan Dixon who were knowledgeable and intense in the weight room, to a ridiculous extent at times, maybe. Anyway, as I learned to utilize resistance bands and different body weight exercises to get a more natural workout, I was able to remain strong while allowing my shin splints in my bad leg to heal.
While the return to baseball was special, big things were happening off the field too. The realization of all that is possible with gratitude turned into a much more positive mode of living. The encounter with the boy with the dragon mentioned in a previous post pounded home a valuable lesson that I’ll carry with me forever: No matter how bad things are in your current state of affairs, there’s always something to be grateful for that someone else would love to have. So be glad you’re so fortunate. Through this attitude, I stepped into my visionary shoes and began to create.
I can still visualize everything, the position of my hospital bed in the room, the pink pale at my feet, and the sun beaming through the window. Physically, it was one of my worst days. I don’t mean to be gross, but I had to have set a new record that day for vomit frequency. Truth is, it didn’t matter. I was only a couple months away from the “finish line”. And I was so used to the gangly feeling of being overcome by nausea that I accepted and maybe even embraced it a little, that day at least. Because the return to my life and the approaching summer was so real. While I rejoiced in that realization, I kind of felt like a cheater. Surely, I thought, I could handle more, yet I get to go home soon. For good. “I am so lucky”, I thought. But what about the others? I felt a certain affinity with them, and something in me wasn't about to just say sayonara to that world just because I was done with chemo. So I began thinking about how to positively impact the fight against cancer some way since I was so fortunate to skate off the way I did. So like any millennial, I started Googling stuff. In my browsing, I discovered that many schools nearby Thiel had Relay for Life events, but Thiel had no such event. Upon that discovery, the next wave of nausea hit me, but this time it really didn’t matter. It couldn’t touch that giddy feeling when you know something big is upon you. I knew what was to happen.
Before I arrived back to Thiel in the fall of 2011, I met with President Van Aken to talk about the possibility of getting some sort of cancer event at Thiel. He was all for it, as he told me about losing his mother to cancer and introduced me to Lauren Oman Zuschlag, an employee in the alumni office who is involved in Greenville Relay for Life. She told me a bit about Relay and how awesome it would be if we could have one at Thiel. We kept in touch through the year, and by the time we were ready to make moves on an event, we feared we’d have insufficient prep time to really make the event a good one. That was a concern of President Van Aken’s, not to jump-throw together a last minute, half effort, event that would be unsuccessful and fizzle out. Instead, he suggested we take a year to get our ducks in line and really do things well the first time.
So in that first year, we sold some luminaria which honor loved ones who have endured cancer and awesome bracelets my friend Michelle Brown made and sent from Bowling Green, Ohio for fundraising. Most of that went on that spring, and we dedicated those funds to the summer Greenville Relay. This was a good way to introduce Relay to Thiel, and get some momentum going for an event the following year.
Just like that, it was time to head home for the summer where I mowed grass from a quick buck. Here I tried on my organizer shoes by taking up an event at Two-mile lake which my cousin had put on the previous two years. The third year doing the Swim Across America event, about a year out of treatments, I gave an attempt to “swim” the event. Well, you see, I’m a horrible swimmer. I used swimming laps as intense cardiovascular work as training for baseball because swimming two laps is a struggle for me. With that, swimming across the entire lake was just not in the question for me, so my buddy Meg motored along with me in the rescue kayak, and gave me a lift, sometimes. I swam out the last few hundred meters which really was grueling for me through all the seaweed and whatnot. While I didn’t actually swim the whole lake, I think it meant something to some people to see me in there. On top of that, I was thrilled to have organized a successful event in many ways, one—being that we raised more total monies than the year before, two—that with the help of the fine folks at Bella’s we created a significant contribution to Zach, the “champion of the swim”, towards his ongoing experience with cancer.
Upon my return to Thiel the next year, it was suggested we designate an advisor early and get things rolling. I went and talked to Professor Connie Reinhart—my professor for mentoring the previous year and is also a cancer survivor—about being an advisor. As she was not in the position to take this role due to some much bigger trials to be faced, she recommended Professor Mary Reames for the position. I had Professor Reames for Education Psychology freshman year, and she was one of my favorite teachers. When I approached Mary about this, she was all for it and really took the position head on.
From that point on, Mary and I would meet every Tuesday to discuss and plan this event. We would sit down at a table in the education department with a yellow notebook and write out the steps and tasks that needed completed by a certain time, and I would go out and delegate as needed to get things taken care of. I had an amazing group of friends around me to really help get things done on campus.
We started things off with a meeting some random weeknight at Glenn Johnson Center. Thankfully, Jen Kumar had a little Autumn Townhouse dinner get together, which ended up being my roommates—Cody, Trent, Nick, and myself with Shea, Jen some other friends. Anyway, I left dinner early to meet with Ernie fifteen minutes or so before the meeting. My roommates came over at the planned time, to find Ernie and I in an empty room. They went ahead and went back over to Townhouse 4 to get those girls, and with that, we then had seven people for the meeting, eight counting Ernie. While I saw this as an embarrassing failure, considering the only reason anyone came was because they were my friends and had my back, Ernie saw that meeting in a whole different light, maybe because there were six people who had my back that way.
At the meeting, the eight of us agreed this was a worthy cause to dedicate ourselves to for the year, and that was the start of the 2013 Thiel College Relay. We had a couple more meetings at a different location, and slowly one friend brought another into the picture and so on and so forth. Then in February, we held a kickoff event in the bistro where many students hang out and order food in the evening. I spoke at this event, and delivered a bold expression of our purpose and the realness of this battle in my personal life. I was told by many that night that my testimony was touching to them. From this point on, Relay took off as teams began to form and fundraise at a wonderfully surprising rate.
On St. Patrick’s day, we sold hundreds of glow stick bracelets outside the MGK concert and made triple digits. This was such an encouraging start to our fundraising, and I had fun doing it. I met Dan Rasor at the Ampatheatre who—unlike the majority—didn’t at all mind staying sober on such an evening. We went up and down a long line outside selling the glowsticks like gold. We had people coming up with five, ten dollar bills asking for huge strands of them; it was great. I actually had to have Yoder—a.k.a. Fellow Longstride come and replenish our glowstick inventory. He came through for us and we were able to supply the demand; Longstride later admitted to being highly intoxicated when he came up to help, but hey, he got the job done. That’s what winners do; take care of business, and that’s what made our Relay squad so successful: it was full of winners.
The weeks leading up to Relay were wild. Mary and I met every Tuesday and Thursday to discuss what needed to be done, objectives for an upcoming meeting, brainstorming, etc. There’s so many loose ends you wouldn’t think about that goes into preparing for an event like that such as technology, security, maintenance, advertising, accounting, etc. None of it could have actually happened without Mary’s guidance and our Logistics lady, Lexi, to pick up the loose ends I would drop along the way, to speak figuratively. My approach was kind of like a hurricane in the realm of possibilities, and they were there to help actualize.
Once the Relay came I couldn’t be more excited/anxious. The Thursday night prior to the event, Nick, Jen Kumar, and I went around campus with sidewalk chalk and wrote all kinds of slogans and ads for the Relay. On top of all the other advertising outlets to be exhausted such as radio, newspapers, newsletters, email, social media, etc., this was a nice little original flare we added on to build anticipation and interest for the event.
On the day of Relay, Saturday, we had a baseball doubleheader, so I left early from that to get to setup. That was when things really set in, as everyone was kind of looking at me to decide where this multitude of tables, chairs, equipment, etc. was to go. There was a point when I became a little bit overwhelmed but just took a deep breath and took on everything bit by bit. I was happy to have my friends there with me. Since neither Nick or Yoder were playing ball that year, they were able to be there. It was epic, as instead of riding up to the dome with my parents, we took a ceremonial walk up the charming, maple-lined Brother Martin’s Walk to the event.
The event ended up going as smoothly as I could have possibly imagined. There was a lot of fun being had, as there was the Final Four being shown on a display screen in the corner with plenty of room in the middle of the football field for cornhole, Frisbee, and football—kids ate that up. Yoder did a great job with the music, so with that—along with the warmth provided by the dome—the atmosphere was wonderful. There was so much love and life in that dome that evening; it was perfect. Professor Reinhart made an inspiring open speech. As an ex-student of hers and fellow survivor; it meant a lot to me to have her up there contributing to the Relay in that way.
The event ended up earning over $14,000 when it was all said and done—all of which went to the American Cancer Society for Cancer research, treatment, prevention, and awareness. Before announcing the total, Ernie came over to Professor Reames and I with a piece of paper with the current fundraising total written on it. When he showed us, we lit up in amazement. A few days before the event we discussed target goals and agreed that even if we reached only four or five grand, we’d be pleased as we got our foot in the door with something to build on for the next year. After a smooth clean-up process with the help of plenty of admirable volunteers; Wren, Longstride, and I walked on down Brother Martin’s—the same way we came up. The Inaugural Thiel College Relay for Life on April 6, 2013 is probably the most memorable experience of my time at Thiel College. That sidewalk bears the deepest symbolism for me.
That same summer, I was awarded the 2013 American Cancer Society Visionary Award at the Greenville Relay banquet and gave a speech at the Greenville Relay. Possibility and reality collided that year, but not without seeds left behind.
