HOLLY

By John Wayne Ferguson

When Holly Young came to the University of New Hampshire in 2004, she was poised to become one of the Wildcat’s best young athletes. A life-long competitor, Young was armed with a tremendous vertical leap, a thunderous kill and a confident serve.

In 2003, after she led her Coastal Volleyball Club team to the Bay State Games Championship and received All-Scholastic awards from The Boston Globe and The Boston Herald, Young was recruited to play outside hitter and setter on Coach Jill Hirschinger’s two-time defending America East championship Wildcats. She redshirted her first season on the team to gain experience with her new team.

It was only after that season, while seeking medical advice about a lump that had appeared on her right leg, that Young was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer. Since then, Holly had become a different kind of competitor, one who championed causes off of the court.

Last Thursday, Jan. 26, Holly Young lost her three-year battle with cancer. She was 22.

In the days that have followed, friends and family remembered her indomitable spirit, while her family hopes that Holly’s story will lead to more research into a rare and deadly form of cancer.

Due to her illness, Holly made an appearance on the court. Even sidelined, those who remember her say she exhibited the characteristics that describe the best in UNH athletes.

“Watching how she fought her disease, I’m sure she would have played just as hard for her team,” said her father, Bernard Young, in a phone interview on Saturday. “She really loved the university and I think it was the best place for her over these last three years.”

Mr. Young remembers his daughter as a happy girl who enjoyed country music, comedy, gourmet cooking, and, especially, the Red Sox. The Boston baseball team and its players would hold an even more special role in her life after Holly’s diagnosis.

“Holly was a special kid, no matter how hard she worked on the court or fighting cancer she always had a smile on her face,” said head volleyball coach Jill Hirschinger.

After spending the 2005-06 school year receiving treatment at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Boston Children’s Hospital, she returned to the UNH sidelines as a teammate/manager in the fall of 2006.

Despite her disease, friends and family remember Holly’s positive attitude and drive to overcome the cancer. “She said a couple years ago that, ‘if anybody on the team should get cancer, it should be me, because I’m tough enough to beat it,’” said Hirschinger.

That same fall it appeared that Holly had indeed beaten the odds. In September, UNH Athletics issued a press release with the announcement that Holly was “cancer free” and that she was once again attending daily workouts with the volleyball team, in hopes of someday returning to the court.

In that statement, Holly thanked the people in her life that helped her through the ordeal.

“While I was in the hospital my parents, Bernie and Carolyn, made the three hour round trip to Boston from Cape Cod daily,” said Young. “Having them there really helped me get through it. In their absence my doctors, nurses and the Jimmy Fund staff couldn’t have been more caring and helpful. They made each and every visit to the clinic a little more bearable. I would like to thank them for everything they did and continue to do, not just for me, but for the entire cancer community.”

Unfortunately, between that time and the beginning of the fall semester 2007, Holly relapsed, and she did not return to Durham. According to an article in the Cape Cod Times, Young knew last fall that she had a short time to live and did not want to burden her friends with her illness.

“The girls are just devastated right now,” said Hirschinger of her team.

Since Holly’s diagnosis, her teammates and coaches rallied around her, while Holly herself began taking on a bigger cause.

In honor of their teammate, the volleyball program organized the “Volley for Holly” tournament in 2005, to help raise money for Young’s treatment and travel expenses. The annual event, which was held for the third time last spring, organized teams of UNH varsity athletes, coaches and staff in an elimination volleyball tournament, refereed by Hirschinger’s team and emceed by Holly. Outside of the UNH community, amateur and professional volleyball players nationwide supported Young through a Wall of Strength program.

Young participated in a number of cancer advocacy programs, including the Jimmy Fund. Through the generosity of the Red Sox and the Jimmy Fund Clinic, Holly attended spring training and an away game each year with other patients. In one memorable Red Sox experience, Holly finished a chemotherapy session and went to the ring ceremony on opening day in 2005. During these trips, and during the annual NESN/WEEI Jimmy Fund telethon, Holly became an articulate spokesperson for the charity

Holly also shared a special relationship with Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, who works alongside the Jimmy Fund with his charity “Curt’s Pitch for ALS.” On his website 38pitches.com, Schilling posted a comment in memory of Holly, writing, “[Holly was] one of those people you meet that no matter how beautiful they look on the outside you get a glimpse of the inner strength and fortitude, and it blows you away.”

Outside of volleyball, Young was active in number of other athletic activities. She trained as a gymnast at Cape Cod Gymnastics for six years, and was a member of her grade school soccer, tennis and track teams. For several years she participated in Cape Cod road races and triathlons. On her Dennis-Yarmouth Regional high school track team, she was a high jumper, hurdler and relay runner. In her memory, the school is renaming the annual “Courage Award” handed out each track season as the “Holly Young Award.” The award is given to the track athlete who has overcome the most obstacles.

The Ewing’s Family of Tumors (EFOT), which includes Ewing’s sarcoma, are rare forms of childhood cancer that, according to the America Cancer Society, are diagnosed in about 250 children and adolescents in the United States each year. Statistically, it accounts for 2 to 3 percent of the childhood cancers diagnosed each year.

In a letter calling for more research on the disease, Mr. Young described the rarity of the cancer as such, “Consider filling Michigan Stadium three times with children and adolescents under the age of 21. Now pick one and say ‘You have Ewing’s sarcoma.’ That is the national statistic.”

Despite the rarity of the disease nationally, Holly was one of seven cases of EFOT diagnosed on Cape Cod in the past ten years, a number that accounts for 8.5% of all the childhood cancer cases reported in that time. Earlier in 2007, Sandwich High School hockey player Jeff Hayes lost his battle with Ewing’s. He and Holly were diagnosed in the same month. Sandwich High, who’s enrollment is less than 1,000 students, has two other students afflicted with Ewing’s. Dennis-Yurmuth Regional High School and Sandwich High School are within 16 miles of each other.

Some families of the cancer victims, including the Youngs, believe that the rise in cases could be related to radiation from the PAVE PAWS early warning missile detection system located at the Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts. However, a Massachusetts Department of Health study conducted in 2007 concluded that it was “unlikely that PAVE PAWS played a primary role in the incidence of EFOT on Cape Cod.”

That’s not enough, says Mr. Young. “Holly’s not a loner in this,” he says, “There is a cluster of Ewing’s sarcoma cases on Cape Cod and it needs to be investigated more closely.”

As her family waits for more answers, the UNH community remembers one of their own. University President Mark Huddleston offered his condolences to the Young family in a statement on Sunday evening.

“On behalf of the entire university community, I offer my deepest sympathies to Holly’s family, friends and teammates,” said UNH President Mark Huddleston. “She was an inspiration to so many in her courageous battle and will be deeply missed by everyone who knew her.”

Before Friday night’s men’s hockey game at the Whittemore Center, Young’s passing was announced to the sellout crowd of 6,501 and a moment of silence was held in her honor. The next evening, on the NESN broadcast of the UNH hockey game, Holly’s picture was shown as the game went into a commercial break.