Saturday's Coaches Vs. Cancer Event to Celebrate Survivors

GRANBY, Mass. -- Tom Burke is a beneficiary of early cancer detection in his own life and a strong proponent of screening for everyone else.

 

“I have a very good friend of mine,” Burke said recently during a break from practice with his Granby High School girls varsity basketball team. “Actually, you know the name. His name is Jimmy Whalen. Johnny Whalen is his brother, and his daughter Annie played for Monument Mountain. Jimmy and I played in high school together. He was supposed to go for a checkup, and he said, ‘Ah, I’m not going.’ I said, ‘You get your ass there.’

 

“I just try to tell people, if you don’t feel right, it’s not right. Something’s wrong.”

 

All is right now for Burke, who has been cancer free for five years.

 

And on Saturday, he will lead his Rams into battle at Hoosac Valley High School, where they will face Taconic in the Hurricane’s Coaches vs. Cancer showcase. Twelve teams -- including seven from Berkshire County -- will play six games starting at 11 a.m.

 

Burke and his Granby teams have long been competitors at the annual event, which annually gives teams from the area and the Pioneer Valley a chance to size one another up a few weeks before the Western Mass tournament gets under way.

 

As a cancer survivor himself, the event benefiting the American Cancer Society has a special meaning for Burke, who was able to keep coaching even while he was undergoing treatment for bladder cancer.

 

The key, he notes, was early detection.

 

“My mom and dad both died in 1997, both died of cancer, not bladder cancer necessarily, but they both died of cancer, the same year,” Burke said. “So my family, and I have five siblings, we all had to be checked.

 

“My [general practitioner] was doing this for me, and something came back, and within three or four days after the physical, I was on the table being operated on. They acted really quickly.”

 

Burke says he was lucky. Because the cancer was caught early, his bladder was intact and the tumor could be removed surgically while leaving the organ in place. Rather than chemotherapy, the treatment involved five years of regular injections with bacteria used to fight the disease.

 

“It’s two hours, and the whole time you’re doing it, you feel like you have to go to the bathroom, that was the only torture,” he recalled with a chuckle. “But it wasn’t tortuous. I understood. And this was a much better option for me than what other treatments could have been.”

 

In fact, he kept coaching while undergoing treatment.

 

“It was easy for me,” he said. “I had the ability to do everything I wanted to do.

 

Five years after being declared cancer free, Burke still has to do regular urinalysis to check for recurrence.

 

For Burke, events like Saturday’s are important not only as fund-raisers to support cancer research but as vehicles to raise awareness about the disease -- and the importance of getting checks.

 

And he is happy to share the gym this year with a fellow cancer survivor, Hoosac Valley senior Alie Mendel, who was diagnosed with thyroid cancer last summer.

 

Like Burke, Mendel did not let the disease slow her down. A few months after her diagnosis, she helped lead the Hoosac Valley girls soccer team into the Western Mass quarter-finals. A month after that, she scored her 1,000th career point for the Hurricanes’ perennially powerful girls basketball squad.

 

On Saturday, the Coaches vs. Cancer event will be played in Mendel’s honor.

 

“It was heartening to hear about the recovery of Hoosac Valley player Alie Mendel after her incredible battle with thyroid cancer last year,” Burke wrote in a statement for the showcase’ program. “So glad she has made a remarkable recovery and got back on the soccer field this fall and is on the court this season.

 

“For both myself and Alie, it is a testament to the strides that have been made in the fight against cancer whether you are a 64-year-old man ( that would be me ) or an 18-year-old young lady. You never know when or who this dreaded disease will strike which is why the CVC is a priority for me and my team.”

 

The Coaches vs. Cancer showcase at Hoosac Valley High School tips off at 11 a.m. on Saturday and concludes when Alie Mendel and host Hoosac Valley take on Medfield at 6:30 p.m. Admission is $5 for adults or $3 for students. Proceeds will benefit both the American Cancer Society and the Mendel family. Donations can be made through the Lady Canes Basketball Booster Club.