Sports, teamwork helped ‘Nova volleyball star Gabby Pethokoukis survive life-threatening challenge

CHERRY HILL, N.J. >> There were few volleyball players in the Big East in 2015 more able to jump up and bat something down than Villanova’s Gabby Pethokoukis. By then, by contrast to everything else, in context, that ability had come to shape her life. It’s what happens when a rare disease steals even the ability to walk from one part of campus to the other.

She was a star, in high school at Benet Academy near Chicago, and almost instantly on Lancaster Pike, where by her sophomore season she was a second-team All-Big East player, a 6-foot-4 middle with bounce, accomplished in jumping up and making blocks. But one day she felt a lump in her throat area.

She thought it might have been that mononucleosis becoming a pest again, as it had been during her freshman season.
It was worse.
It was much worse.

---

It was cancer.
More, it was a form of cancer rare in the United States, more likely to challenge people in Africa, more likely to challenge people over 40. But that’s what a biopsy revealed; it was Burkitt’s lymphoma, a form of Hodgkin’s disease. She didn’t just have a tumor. Her disease had afflicted her with the fastest-growing tumor known to doctors.
​
Fighting back would no longer be a game.

“A tough road,” Pethokoukis said. “But I had a lot of support.”

She had the support and she had the courage and she fought off the disease, and because she did she was able not only to return to Villanova, but to help lead the Wildcats into the last NCAA Tournament with a 25-9 record, the most victories in their program since 1993. For that, Pethokoukis was named as the Most Courageous Athlete of 2015 by the Philadelphia Sports Writers Association at the annual dinner Monday at the Crowne Plaza.

“At first, I thought it was nothing to worry about,” she said. “Then, I heard it was cancer. And that was definitely a shock. But I think I was able to stay strong and stay positive that day because of the support around me. I was reassured from the beginning that no matter what happens, we’re going to get through this.”

That’s what stuck with Pethokoukis as she left Villanova to return for treatment at two hospitals near and in Chicago associated with Northwestern University. It was the fact that she was not going to be in that fight alone. It was that she had a team, not just of some of the world’s most able doctors, but of her coaches and her teammates.

Prayers, knowledge, money, and caring people of all kinds helped her recover.

But so did sports.
Yes, so did sports.

“I think that was really big, that I had that support,” she said. “It was definitely hard to believe that I was going through something like this. But it just kind of helped having that athlete mentality to get through this. And I think a lot of the volleyball training helped me get through that.”

If the practices at Villanova were long and difficult, and the results indicate that they were, Pethokoukis’ other fight would be slightly different. In a strange way, it actually would be relatively short and compact. One reason why victims of Burkitt’s are known to have high survival rates is that the treatment encourages patients to essentially absorb nine months’ worth of chemotherapy in about three months. Doctors told her that her best chance at survival was to be treated with the strongest form of chemo.

The doctors were right.
The plan worked.

By June 23, 2014, doctors assured her that her cancer was in remission and she was cancer-free. However, the effects of the intense chemotherapy were not easy to shake. So, she continued the fight.

“It was a long road back,” she said. “At one point, I couldn’t walk. I remember when I went back to school, and just going from one part of the campus to the other, I would have to walk some, then rest, then walk some more.

“I was gassed.”
Fortunately for her, she was used to exhausting challenges. More, as she was fighting off her disease, she was only hoping for more.

“I realized what I had missed,” she said. “Then, I was just hoping for a chance to get back to a practice, to get back to doing homework.”

She wanted to return to being a college student, and more specifically, a Villanova student. Though she was cured closer to her home in Illinois, she never considered not finishing her career as a Wildcat. That was part of her mission. She succeeded. By last season, just about a year after being free of her cancer, she was making 127 blocks, sixth most in a single-season in Villanova history.

The challenge delayed Pethokoukis’s progress toward a finance degree, but she has recovered and will graduate with her class in May. More, she will be graduating with some of her teammates, with whom she said she would have liked to have shared her award.

“It means a lot,” she said, “to all of us.”

That’s sports.
That’s courage.
“I was humbled,” she said of the award. “But when you are going through it, you learn more about it, and you see the pictures of kids who had it and you realize that it could have been worse. And you know that they are the ones who are most courageous.”

They were. Gabby Pethokoukis was too.

Teamwork can, and has, achieved many kinds of victories.