When I think of Coach Deb Brown, I hear her
basketball game-day black, high-heeled leather boots, stomping onto the court
to fire us up or argue a call. I see her standing on the field hockey sideline
in the pouring rain, yelling at us to get back on defense. I see her crouched
next to third base on the softball field, her arm swinging around like a
windmill directing us home. I feel her grabbing the back of my jersey, getting
in my face and telling me what I needed to do to win the game. I see her hosting team pasta parties at her
house, mixing her famous Caesar salad and bonding with the team. I see her as I
did when I met her in fifth grade: tall, intimidating and passionate. When I
think of Coach Deb Brown, I don’t think of breast cancer.
I don’t think of her leaving practice early to
get tests done, or travelling into New York City to get surgery. I don’t think
of the winces of pain that shot across her face when she moved her arms in just
the wrong way swinging a softball bat for infield practice, or the smile that
would mask the pain afterwards. I don’t think of sophomore-in-high-school me
hearing that the woman who had been a pushing me to be a better person, athlete
and teammate since I was twelve, had cancer.
I remember when she told the team of her
diagnosis, she described her breast cancer as “stage zero.” They had caught it
early, but cancer isn’t something to mess with. Deb never brought it up after
that. I’d occasionally ask how she was feeling and the answer was always the
same. “I’m fine,” she’d say as she told me to go do my warm up laps or join my
team in drills. Looking back on it, I think practice was an escape, a time to
focus on our field hockey season (and making sure we weren’t cutting corners on
our sprints) instead of whatever medical diagnoses she had just gotten. Deb was
the strongest woman I knew, because whatever was going on in her personal life
didn’t affect her on the field. She didn’t let her cancer define her, in fact,
she did her best to make us forget that she was affected by it at all.
The only time that the team publicly recognized
her cancer was during the Coaches Vs. Cancer game that we put together every
season to support local coaches affected by cancer. I remember getting my pink
warm up shirt for basketball with the “I Play For…” written on the back,
waiting to be filled in with a sharpie to show the crowd who we were supporting
that night. Deb’s name went on my shirt all three years after she was
diagnosed. Our team had never been collectively affected by something before,
and as unfortunate as the circumstances were, Deb brought us together as a team
even further. We had a united reason to battle on the court, we all had her
name on our backs. I Relay (and play) for Deb.
The nature of our relationship was very much a
mother-daughter relationship. Deb wouldn’t take any of my crap and knew how to
get me to play my best on my off-days. She knew to wind me up like a toy car on
the sideline, to get my wheels spinning and then to push me back into the game
to skid off and finish the fight. She told me not to cry as the final buzzer
sounded when we lost in first-round basketball playoffs my freshman year … and
sophomore year… and junior year… and she was in the audience for the eventual
win my senior year. Deb’s always been in my corner, and I’ll always be in hers.
Finding pictures to accompany this post was
difficult, mainly because Deb shies away from the camera at every given
opportunity, making one excuse or another to duck away before the flash went
off. I did, however, find her in all of our team pictures. Deb’s the biggest
team player in the game, the one to bind us together, to take me aside to make
sure that everyone was getting along off the field as well as on the field.
Furthermore, I didn’t want the focus of this blog post to be cancer, because
that was never Deb’s focus. Deb focused on the girls that (half) jokingly
called her mom, that cheered her on at her bowling nights, that she told to
“RELAX!” at the foul line, or the pitcher’s circle or during strokes of a field
hockey game. Deb builds teams into families.
So this one’s for you,
Deb. For your tireless efforts to motivate us at (too) early Saturday morning
practices (the best way to encourage a bunch of New York girls is to promise a
deli-run after practice), for the famous Caesar salad and the way you walk
excitedly up and down the sideline at a field hockey game. For the way that
cancer never stopped you from being you and helping us.
RelayLove,
Team Engagement Committee
