Crowd Gathers For Herzlich

Early Saturday morning, thousands of spirited SuperFans gathered to face one of their toughest opponents yet: cancer. The Dustbowl was brimming with rain-soaked "Beat Cancer" T-shirts and television crews from ESPN's College GameDay, which was on campus to highlight Mark Herzlich's story of his battle with Ewing's sarcoma.

ESPN had heard of the fact that BC has been supporting Herzlich, CSOM '10, through his battle with cancer and thought his story to be an inspiring profile. "We know that the school is honoring Mark Herzlich," said Michael Fountain, a senior coordinating producer for College GameDay. Fountain said that, in addition to the long feature they planned to do on his struggle, they also planned to highlight other athletes who had recently overcome adversity. "While Mark is fighting to overcome his challenge, they're overcoming their own challenge," Fountain said. "Herzlich is the peg, and we're sort of expanding to cover other athletes, as well."

The presence of ESPN on campus for the game also meant large-scale publicity for BC's football program. "It's great for the BC community and the football program, and we are all very excited," said Frank Spaniani, BC head football coach. Herzlich has served as a self-dubbed "assistant-assistant coach" to Spaziani in recent months.

Herzlich was diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma, a rare bone cancer, in his leg at the close of last semester. Since then he has undergone chemotherapy and radiation treatments, recently receiving the news that the cancer was almost certainly completely gone. He made this announcement to GameDay announcers Chris Fowler, Lee Corso, and Kirk Herbstreit during the broadcast to a roar of applause from the crowd gathered in the Dustbowl.

Though cancer has temporarily forced Herzlich to watch games from the sideline this season, he said that his diagnosis has afforded him a new perspective on life and priorities. He has said that his number one priority is to return to the field as soon as possible."When I picture beating cancer and I picture my fight through all of this, the end result is me running out of the tunnel, with the team behind me going through that banner, with the crowd being as loud as you've ever heard it," he said in his GameDay profile. Following a surgery that will insert a metal rod in his femur, Herzlich plans to return to football next season.

Campus-wide support for Herzlich's plight was made apparent by the number of students and alumni packed into the Dustbowl, some even hanging out of the windows of Fulton and Lyons Halls. "It was a lot more touching than I originally thought it was going to be," Miguel Londoño, CSOM '12, said. "I think we all knew that Mark was going through chemo and had cancer, but we didn't know the details of it and how strong and positive of a person he is."

Herzlich also received words of encouragement from former New England Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi, who himself suffered a stroke that took him out of the game. "He's really proud of being a survivor," Herzlich told GameDay announcers. "Being a survivor is a group that's very special and that there's a lot of responsibility that comes with that to help others and continue to fight."

SuperFans were encouraged to sport the golden "Beat Cancer" T-shirts that have been sold on campus for weeks now, featuring an eagle wearing Herzlich's signature eye black. One-hundred percent of the proceeds of these T-shirts went to cancer research. So far, taking into account sales of the T-shirts and other donations, Herzlich and BC have raised nearly $50,000 for Ewing's sarcoma research.

This desire to support Herzlich's cause overcame athletic rivalries as FSU presented Herzlich with a check for $9,400, in honor of his jersey number 94, at halftime. The University had raised the money through donations from the Seminole Boosters, Varsity Club, the Alumni Association, and the FSU Foundation.