Coaches Rally for Cancer-Stricken Comrade
by Matt DaSilva | Lacrosse Magazine Online Staff
It was the fall of 1969, and new Cortland men’s lacrosse
Jack Emmer was about to embark on a Hall of Fame career when he saw
in one of his players a lot of the hardiness that made Emmer an
All-American defenseman at Rutgers. The kid fashioned himself an
attackman, but Emmer saw how he battled back from a head injury
stemming from a car accident and envisioned him beating down on
less resolute opponents.
Lacrosse, you see, is in Jack McGetrick’s bones. But
something else is too.
Cancer.
McGetrick, now entering his sixth season as the head coach at
Bellarmine University after 11 seasons at Hartford, felt pain
“down there” and had trouble urinating about a year ago
when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. The news got worse when
a bone scan revealed the cancer had spread to his hip, pelvis, ribs
and spine.
The quintessential tough guy -- the one who became a first team
All-American defenseman under Emmer; who used to race and beat his
Hartford players in three-mile runs; who had the gall to take on
the ECAC establishment last spring when some coaches railed against
a Kentucky school’s inclusion in the realigned league -- kept
his condition under wraps during a 6-8 campaign for the
Knights.
But his pain was real.
“The first round of chemotherapy didn’t take care of
the problem. It actually spread a little more,” McGetrick
said Thursday. “Three weeks ago I set on a mix of three
different chemos, and then I’ll get another bone scan in four
weeks or so… The chemo takes its toll. So does hormone
therapy. We started taking good cells out of my body to kill the
cancer. You try to work out without any testosterone.”
McGetrick remains committed to staying on the sidelines in 2010.
“For my own sake and the program I want to put it out there
that I don’t intend on going anywhere,” the soon-to-be
60-year-old said.
Only this time, as McGetrick leads Bellarmine into its season
opener Feb. 6 at Detroit Mercy, he’ll be backed by a
groundswell of support from his peers.
The Intercollegiate Men’s Lacrosse Coaches Association
(IMLCA) recently established an emergency fund to help McGetrick,
whose medical expenses have been ratcheted up by the two-weeks-on,
two-weeks-off cycle of chemotherapy in which he takes six pills a
day at $300 per pill.
As a part of the fundraising initiative “Everyone Works
for Jack,” college coaches around the country will host
clinics Jan. 24, the proceeds of which will support
McGetrick’s cancer treatments.
“Jack McGetrick was a guy that was always in better shape
than everybody else, not only as a player, but when
coaching,” said Emmer, chair of the Coaches Emergency Fund.
“Weight training, running marathons, he had this mentality
that he was almost indestructible. His physical fitness level in a
sense hurt him, because he was fit as a horse.”
“He’s got a great attitude,” Emmer added,
“but it’s going to be a tough battle.”
Fees vary and details remain in flux, but among schools interested
in hosting clinics that day are Bowdoin, Duke, Fairfield,
Georgetown, Loyola, Maryland, Nazareth, Robert Morris, Virginia
Wesleyan and Washington College. Delaware, Franklin and Marshall,
Franklin Pierce, Harvard, Hofstra and Hood have also expressed
interest in supporting the cause with clinics of their own prior to
the season.
“It’s unbelievable. You can get corny and trite about
it, but these guys are doing it, and it’s humbling to
me,” said McGetrick, who will reconvene with many of those
coaches Jan. 15-17 at the US Lacrosse
National Convention, presented by Champion, in Baltimore.
McGetrick will present an educational session on up-tempo team
drills. “I’m so glad I’m a part of this
profession.”
Donations can be sent to:
Jack McGetrick Fund
IMLCA
P.O. Box 644
Forestdale, Mass.
02644
