October 13, 2009

Breast Cancer: A Cause Close to Home

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and for Rashad McCants and his family, the subject hits very close to home.

Rashad’s mother Brenda was diagnosed with breast cancer while Rashad was starring on the hardwood at the University of North Carolina. As he told the Herald-Sun:

“When I heard the news, we were playing Duke at home,” said Rashad McCants, 25, who was a junior at UNC and a star on the Tar Heel basketball team. “It just kind of hit.”

“It was hard to cope with, hard to keep focusing and playing,” Rashad McCants recalled.

“The thing I constantly thought about is where would I be without her.”

Brenda had a mastectomy the day after Rashad’s Tar Heels won the 2005 National Championship. She’s been cancer-free ever since.

Beth Velliquette recounts Brenda McCants’ bout with the disease and her efforts to raise awareness after she beat it.

“When God gives you a second chance, what do you do with it?” she said. “The answer is, everything you can, especially to help someone else.”

So she joined a group of women called the Sisters Network, whose mission is to educate African-American women about breast cancer and help those who are diagnosed with it.

“Our cancers are different,” she said. “Our tumors are so much more aggressive and so much more deadly.”

As the article notes, Rashad has always been a proponent of breast cancer awareness. As soon as he signed a deal in the NBA, he set up “Shoot for the Cure,” an event held yearly in his hometown of Asheville, North Carolina, where people purchase a basketball shot with a chance to win $20,000. The proceeds from the event go toward breast cancer research.

It’s the least Rashad could do for the woman who has given him so much, as quoted by the Herald-Sun:

“She’s one of the strongest women I’ve ever been around,” he said. “I love her to death. I don’t know what I would do without her.”

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