For more THON coverage, check out the StateCollege.com THON page here.
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Pediatric Cancer. The mere mention of these words conjures a wide spectrum of emotions:
Fear. A young couple learning their child has been diagnosed with cancer.
Hope. Learning that a new medication or treatment has improved survival rates significantly.
Sadness. Learning that one of the youngsters has succumbed to the disease.
Joy. When a parent is given the news that their child’s cancer is in remission.
Hope. What everyone feels when they see thousands of college kids united in one of the most worthy causes they will be engaged in during their lives.
The annual IFC/Panhellenic Dance Marathon at Penn State is where hope lives and love belongs, and you belong there with it this weekend at the BJC.
For those who need a refresher, “The Four Diamonds” got its start as a fantasy short story written by Chris Millard shortly before he succumbed to cancer at the age of 14. The story gave name to the Four Diamonds Fund, a childhood cancer-centered charitable organization established in 1972 by Chris’ parents Charles and Irma.
Chris wrote about a knight whose mission it was to obtain the Diamonus Quadrus (the Four Diamonds) of Courage, Wisdom, Honesty and Strength. Chris believed these were essential qualities for anyone in the battle against cancer.
We have all been touched by cancer in one way or another. My father just beat prostate cancer. My Uncle Joe lost his long battle with lung cancer.
Most Penn Staters have been involved in one way or another with THON, and most have some lasting memory about how THON has touched them. Renee Messina, a neighbor and the trainer for our 1990 Icer National Championship team, and her family have dealt with the effects of childhood cancer ever since their daughter Isabella was diagnosed with leukemia. Isabella is a classmate of my youngest son Ryan, and to see her back in school and just being one of the kids again is a real blessing.
But this story is about my hero, a young man named Matt Seybert. His parents, Ron and Jill, will tell you that the Penn State ice hockey players were heroes to Matt and that the guys helped him through his battle with cancer. Well, that may be true, but I can tell you without a doubt that Matt was an even bigger hero to our team. He was an integral part of the national championships that we won from 2001-2003. He was an inspiration to us throughout our title run.
Matt was just a normal kid who was an avid youth soccer player but suddenly began to feel weak and sick. Matt was 9 when he was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is a form of leukemia, or cancer of the white blood cells characterized by excess lymphoblasts. It causes damage and death by crowding out normal cells in the bone marrow, and by spreading (metastasizing) to other organs.
Matt was introduced to our team captain, Josh Mandel, by a mutual friend, Jamie Miller, a gem of a young lady. Matt became close to many of the Icer players like Josh Mandel, Brendan and Dustin Martin, Curtiss Patrick, Brandon Cook and especially Paul Crooker. He was a regular at Icer games and a stick boy, honorary captain (he would come on the bench during warm-ups), and a regular in our locker room as a member of our team.
We stopped by the house where Matt and his parents stayed in Hershey with our team bus on the way back from a game at Delaware. The neighbors gave us some pretty funny looks when the whole team got off the bus. The guys played video games with Matt and hung out all afternoon with the Seyberts.
Matt’s parents and his sister, Sarah, are heroes as well. I remember his dad shaving his head when Matt’s hair fell out during his chemo treatments so Matt would feel at ease. Jill stayed at home to help care for Matt and keep the family affairs in order. Everyone had to make sacrifices. Sister Sarah is a real unsung hero, as she had to make a lot of sacrifices while her parents looked after Matt.
She became buddies with Icer Paul Crooker, who is a big kid at heart himself, and he helped her to cope. She even volunteered to be tested to see if her bone marrow would be a match. Alas, it was not, and Matt had to endure the advanced chemotherapy treatments and spinal-cranial radiation treatments.
One story stands out in my mind. We were facing St. Louis University in the first round of the Nittany Lion Invitational, and we were unexpectedly down 1-0 after the first period and being badly outplayed. I came in to the locker room ready to rip into the team. I screamed at everyone to sit down and be quiet. I spotted Matt sitting in the room lecturing a few of our guys. He could tell I was angry, so he got up and said he’d wait outside. On his way out he handed me a note with some ideas for what we needed to do. It said:
1. Stay out of the penalty box
2. Get more shots
3. Get shots on the net
4. Play like a team
Well, after I read the note, I took a deep breath and composed myself, and instead of lashing out at the team, I pulled out Matt’s note and read it very calmly, but firmly, to the team.
When I was done I simply said,” Can you guys do that?” They enthusiastically replied YES! As they came together at the center of the locker room I said “the list I just read came from Matty. Do you think you can go out and do what he asks?” We stormed out of the locker room and scored 6 unanswered goals that period, en route to a 9-1 victory.
I have been lucky to have been involved in THON over the years including every year as a donor. But a few years really stand out.
In 2001, after getting to know Matt and his family, I was asked to give the keynote speech at a THON fundraising dinner at the Penn Stater. It was just after 9-11 and people were fearful and the economy was stagnant. I implored people to give even more in time, energy, and donations during that time of fear and adversity.
Our Icer teams have always been involved in the skits that the student-athletes do, and in 2008, good friend Dr. Nate Althouse and I were the emcees for the athlete talent show (complete with tuxedos). Last year the Icers came out during the talent show dressed in penguin outfits and waddled their way to first place in a hilarious rendition of “The March of the Penguins.’
But my favorite THON memory comes from 2007. I was asked to give the pre-dance pep talk just moments before the official start of the event. Standing up on stage by yourself in front of close to 10,000 dancers and observers with a bright spotlight on you can be a bit intimidating. But it may have been the easiest speech I ever had to give.
After a few cheers to get everyone pumped up, I segued into a brief description of how a young boy had come to mean something special to me and the Icers. That while people looked up to us as heroes, this young man was our hero. I gave a brief description of what Matt had been through and I relayed the locker room story that inspired our comeback win over St. Louis.
So when it came time to bring Matt out on stage (wearing his Penn State Icer jersey, I might add), he sprinted toward me, and unrehearsed, jumped into my arms and hugged me with all his strength.
There wasn’t a dry eye in the house and my heart raced and I felt the most incredible rush of adrenaline I had ever felt. A 15-year-old Matt grabbed that microphone and, completely un-phased by the size of the crowd, gave one of the most inspirational speeches you can imagine.
It really was no big deal for Matt. It was his moment to seize the Diamonus Quadrus and to inspire the cheering throng before him. It was magical, and Matt knocked it out of the park!
I try to periodically get together with Matt and his family. Birthday parties (he will be 19 on March 10), Icer hockey games, his high school graduation party, and occasional breakfasts at the Waffle Shop, which we recently did before Matt went back to school.
I brought Matt and his dad into the Deloitte suite at Mellon Arena for the Penguins-Maple Leafs game in Pittsburgh on Dec. 27 (thanks to good friend Cliff Benson). To see the look on his face was priceless.
Matt is a freshman chemistry major who earned Dean’s list in his first semester at Lock Haven. He plays ultimate Frisbee and plans to play in-line hockey this spring. He just returned from a nanotechnology conference in Washington DC. His passion and mission is to become a researcher to help develop a method for targeting cancerous cells without harming healthy ones by using nanotechnology. His dream is to help eliminate the need for chemotherapy so kids won’t have to go through the sickness and the hair loss.
Matt has a message for the PSU students who support THON: “Get involved and stay involved. Most importantly, be a friend to the young kids who are fighting the good fight”.
In October, Matt celebrated his 5th year of being cancer-free.
Now you see why Matt is MY hero!
To donate or find out how to get involved in the future go to www.THON.org. It will change you forever!
