Fighting Cancer One Ball at a Time

As a kid on the elementary school playgrounds I used to be a terror. Kickball. Dodgeball. Baseball. If it was spherical in shape, if it could be thrown or kicked, I dominated.

A lot has changed. I don’t wipe my runny nose on my sleeve anymore (at least not when anyone’s looking), don’t collect Star Wars figures and don’t dominate the athletic fields just by showing up the way I used to.

But it doesn’t stop me from going out to play – especially when it’s for a good cause. This month I’ve already had a chance to do that twice.

On May 3, I played in the Robert F. Novins Memorial Golf Tournament, a two-day fiesta that is equal parts party and golf. The event is in its seventh year now and has raised more than $200,000 to purchase much-needed equipment and technology at the Robert and Carol Weissman Cancer Center.

Then on May 9 I got to play in a unique event that brought me back to those days on the playground. The inaugural Tom Vadas Memorial Dodge for the Cure is a dodgeball tournament designed to raise money for Martin Memorial’s inpatient oncology unit.

The tournament, which drew more than 30 teams to Jensen Beach High School, was created by Sandie Vadas, Tom’s wife. It was a way to honor a unique guy who battled Hodgkin’s lymphoma for 16 years before passing away in May 2007. The event raised money to purchase amenities for patient rooms on the oncology floor and is a fitting legacy for a fun-loving, compassionate man.

Sadly, I was egregiously bad in both events (though our team was so fast we were just a blur in the picture at left). But that wasn’t the point. For me, it was an opportunity to do just a little bit to help in the global fight against cancer.

And it came at an appropriate time. May 13 marks the 11th anniversary of my father’s death. He was 49 years old when he died of mesothelioma, a particularly nasty cancer that cut him down far too soon.

Now, more than a decade later, science has made tremendous gains against cancer. More people survive the disease than ever before. But cancer is still the second-leading cause of death in the United States.

Until there is a cure, there will be more golf tournaments, more dodgeballs to the head, more fundraisers to keep the battle going. Because to the family and friends of people like Robert Novins, Tom Vadas and Norman Samples, cancer isn’t a game.

--Scott Samples

Public Information Coordinator