A coach can be described as an individual of passion and strength, someone who brings out the best of their players through inspiration.
Now, take that passionate, strong, and inspiring individual and give them three words that could be the worst news of their life: “You have cancer.”
Melissa Frost and Bari Mance are two softball coaches who have received that news.
Frost, known as Missy to her peers and colleagues, is the head coach at Division II University of Indianapolis; she was diagnosed with breast cancer in November of 2016. The diagnosis came on a day that she and her team were, in an ironic twist, visiting the pediatric cancer unit at the local hospital.
“I had the opportunity to talk one-on-one with a mom as she watched her young son play in the distance,” Frost stated, recalling the memory. “She talked about the hardship and long road that was behind him and the long road that lies ahead.”
Little did Frost know that, later that same day, she would get a call from her doctor that set her on a very similar road.
“In that moment, I realized I was no longer invincible,” she said of that phone call. “I had just joined a sorority of fighters [that] I never asked to be a part of.”
A sorority she didn’t want to share with others, either.
“In typical Missy fashion, I wanted to keep this news from many others, especially my team, and I was going to swear my staff to secrecy as well,” Frost added. “The great thing about having an amazing staff is that they will constantly challenge you and tell you when you’re being crazy. They posed the question ‘How in the world will you be able to keep it from everyone when you start losing your hair?’
“It was then I realized that, as private as I wanted to be with this and as much as I wanted to do it on my own, neither one was going to happen.”
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In August of 2017, Bari Mance, the head coach at Division III St. John Fisher, was alone in her kitchen when she received a call from her own doctor.
“I can still remember feeling my knees go weak and dropping to my kitchen floor,” Mance said recently. “My eyes filled helplessly with water and started pouring down my face. The doctor’s words went in and out of my stream of consciousness.”
For Mance, the diagnosis came after a period of time where she put off her symptoms, ascribing them to other happenings in her life. Her sole focus was on a single goal for the year – taking her team back to the Division 3 World Series.
“We had very high expectations, so I [wrote off] symptoms of breast cancer: fatigue (easy, I’m always tired), dry itchy skin (it’s winter, it happens), and the indentation (I need to get to the gym to tighten up) out of my mind. I focused on work,” Mance recalled.
Focusing on work and coping at work are two different ball games.
“I had a couch in my office that I would sleep on,” Mance added. “If I was tired, I would sleep, and on more than one occasion I would be woken up so that I could help someone in the gym for individual work.”
Both Mance and Frost endured the stress of treatment during their playing seasons. They worked closely with their doctors to figure out the most convenient treatment days for their busy schedules.
“I purposely put my chemo appointments on Monday mornings, so that I could do practice Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, before it got so bad that I had to be in bed,” Mance said. “Thursdays were our off days, and by the time Friday came around, I was just starting to feel better for our weekend games.”
For Frost, Tuesdays were treatment days so that her teaching and NCAA committee responsibilities weren’t interrupted.
“Choosing Tuesdays meant my extremely rough days would be Friday, Saturday and Sunday,” Frost said. “I endured chemo once every three weeks the entire season, and I was fortunate enough to only miss one weekend.”
Both coaches say that unwavering support and love received from their players, coaching staffs, and schools was phenomenal, serving the purpose of giving the fear of reality a backseat, even if only for a little while.
“That year, we had the odd saying of ‘doing it for me.’ We fell one game short in the end, but it was an amazing season; I can’t help but look back with a smile,” Mance describes.
Frost notes, “I found myself in the face of adversity, hardship, and heartache many times, but the wonderful thing is I never found myself alone. My staff and I used to joke that ‘we’ had treatment or ‘we’ had chemo, and they were exactly right. The battle was a ‘we’ battle.”
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The support didn’t stop within their respective programs. Unfortunate events led to very fortunate friendships.
In 2017, Frost was the recipient of the National Fastpitch Coaches Association’s Donna Newberry Perseverance Award. At the NFCA Convention that year, she gave a speech detailing her journey; in the audience for that speech was Mance, who was sparked to introduce herself afterwards, sharing her own story.
“From that day on, we chatted quite often,” Frost explained. “We chatted about the ups and downs, the unknowns that were coming, the struggles and fight of what she may endure on her journey.”
Mance received the Donna Newberry Perseverance Award in 2019, where she was able to share her experiences in a speech at the organization’s convention, just as Frost had done two years prior.
The friendship between Frost and Mance ignited an idea for them to reach out and help other softball coaches who may be experiencing the same ordeal, whether battling cancer themselves or supporting someone close to them who was fighting the battle.
“We both sat at convention last year and had the exact same thought,” said Mance. “We need to continue to help others by sharing our stories, experiences and to give advice based on what we went through.”
In December, at the annual NFCA Convention, Frost and Mance will hold a roundtable discussion for other coaches and individuals who may want to share their stories within a group of people who know exactly what they are feeling.
“We simply want to help others,” Frost explains. “The game of softball brought together two girls who are now lifelong friends trying to make a difference from three words…’you have cancer.’”
