Boston College linebacker Mark Herzlich has become an inspiration to his teammates after battling Ewing's sarcoma, a rare bone cancer. This story in The New York Daily News is about Herzlich, an all-American linebacker, who had a tumor in his left femur. A 12-inch titanium rod was inserted in his leg for support. Rehabilitation has been measured in leaps. At first,...
Boston College cancer survivor Mark HerzlichBoston College linebacker Mark Herzlich has become an inspiration to his teammates after battling Ewing's sarcoma, a rare bone cancer.
This story in The New York Daily News is about Herzlich, an all-American linebacker, who had a tumor in his left femur. A 12-inch titanium rod was inserted in his leg for support. Rehabilitation has been measured in leaps.
At first, he could barely hop; now he performs left-legged box jumps, skips rope and sprints on a stationary bike. The cancer is in remission. Over Fourth of July weekend, he stood on one leg as he water-skied at Lake Placid.
"Some of what he does on the field seems supernatural," says Jason Loscalzo, B.C.'s strength and conditioning coach.
When he stepped on the grass the first day of spring practice last March, head coach Frank Spaziani, his former defensive coordinator, asked Herzlich how he felt.
"Annoyingly good," Herzlich said, knowing he'd still be reined in for caution.
Cancer has taken Herzlich down an unexpected path, writes Kevin Armstrong. At charity event sites that included the Kennedy family's compound in Hyannisport on Cape Cod, Herzlich met Miss USA Rima Fakih, played in Tom Brady's flag football game, and chatted with actor Verne Troyer (starred as Mini-Me in the Austin Powers movies) and country singer Kenny Chesney.
Sister Barbara Anne Hallman, a septuagenarian in South Bend keeps vigil for Herzlich at the Convent of Our Holy Angels. She learned of his diagnosis on the Internet and struck up a pen-pal relationship with him, punctuating missives with inspirational words and images of innocence like fawns at her first-floor window.
"God has your back," she wrote in her latest letter two weeks ago. She hangs a photo of him in uniform above her bed and another of him and his brother, Brad, a Brown freshman, with the Labrador they bought their parents for Christmas last season on her desk. She has a Google alert set for his name.
"I guess you can say I'm, what do you call it, a groupie?" she says.