AILING SIMI BASKETBALL COACH TEACHES STUDENTS LIFE LESSONS.Byline: Christopher Noxon Daily News Staff Writer Dave Marshall Dave Marshall is a guitarist who has performed with Fiona, Vince Neil, and Slaughter. He toured with Slaughter in 1995, filling-in for guitarist Tim Kelly, due to legal problems. He also toured with Slaughter in 1998 after Tim Kelly died, performing in Japan. broke the news to his players over lunch. The coach of Royal High School's junior varsity junior varsity n. Abbr. JV A high-school or college team that competes in interschool sports on the level below varsity. Noun 1. basketball team summoned the teen-age boys to a small room off the gymnasium for what they thought would be a noontime noon·time n. See noon. pep talk. Marshall stared at his feet as he spoke. He couldn't look anyone in the face. During a routine physical a few days before, he explained, doctors discovered a lump in his stomach. It was lymphoma, a cancerous mass extending from the right side of his navel to his left pelvis pelvis, bony, basin-shaped structure that supports the organs of the lower abdomen. It receives the weight of the upper body and distributes it to the legs; it also forms the base for numerous muscle attachments. . Chemotherapy, blood marrow transplants and months of treatment would follow. ``Nobody said anything,'' said Cameron Dickson, a 15-year-old forward with the team. ``Everybody got real quiet and we all just walked out. No one knew what to say.'' It has been two months since that initial shock. In days that followed - days often marked by painful treatments - Marshall has made a conscious effort not to keep his illness or his feelings about it secret. In the process, he has taught his players more than the strategies and skills of basketball. Players say the 32-year-old coach has shown them how to face the unthinkable with courage and humor humor, according to ancient theory, any of four bodily fluids that determined man's health and temperament. Hippocrates postulated that an imbalance among the humors (blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile) resulted in pain and disease, and that good health was . ``Watching him go through this is teaching me how I could deal with something so scary,'' said Danny DeOlivera, a 15-year-old point guard. ``If something like this ever happens to me, I'd try to handle it just like him.'' Marshall has a bond with players that extends far beyond the court. The Simi Valley Simi Valley (sē`mē, sĭm`ē), city (1990 pop. 100,217), Ventura co., SW Calif. in an oil, fruit, and farm region; laid out 1887, inc. 1969. native moved away to attend college but returned home soon after graduation to be near his parents. Since taking a coaching job at Royal 10 years ago, Marshall has taught math and history and been the announcer at softball softball, variant of baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Invented (1888) in Chicago as an indoor game, it was at various times called indoor baseball, mush ball, playground ball, kitten ball, and, because it was also played by women, ladies' , water polo water polo, swimming game encompassing features of soccer, football, basketball, and hockey. The object of the game is to maneuver, by head, feet, or hand, a leather-covered ball 27 to 28 in. and football games. He spends off-hours playing computer games and going to movies with students. ``Next to telling my mom and dad, telling the kids was the hardest,'' he said. ``We spend anywhere from three to eight hours a day together - we're all really close.'' Marshall said he has fought the illness with a few well-worn weapons. First is a firm resolve not to despair. ``I refuse to be afraid of it - I almost disrespect it,'' he said. ``I've never cried about it, not because it's a macho thing, but because I don't want it to know it bothers me.'' It also helps to laugh. Marshall said he and his players often crack jokes to lighten the darker moments. A few days after he was told about the growth in his stomach, he joked that he was beginning to suspect he was pregnant. Last week a player asked him if was faking chemotherapy as an excuse for his baldness. But with monthly chemotherapy just beginning and a stem cell stem cell In living organisms, an undifferentiated cell that can produce other cells that eventually make up specialized tissues and organs. There are two major types of stem cells, embryonic and adult. transplant in six months, Marshall knows the hardest days are ahead. Marshall doesn't regret telling his players about his illness, and he's been surprised how much support he has found in return. ``If you're honest about it and don't act afraid of it, they're fine,'' he said. ``That doesn't mean they're not afraid or worried or concerned, but if you're honest, they can deal with it.'' CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: (Ran in Conejo and Simi only--color) JV basketball coach Dave Marshall is being treated for lymphoma. Gene Blevins/Special to the Daily News |
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