Friday Features: Brock Ward Brings St. Jude Connection to UWA Baseball
By Chris Megginson
In March 2015, his senior season as a University of West Alabama pitcher,
Brock Ward began to feel pain in his side around his ribs. He pitched through it and began treated as a pulled muscle. But as the season progressed, the pain was accompanied by night sweats and fatigue. After graduating from UWA in May 2015 and winning the Gulf South Conference championship on his home field, Ward went home to Louisville, Mississippi to see doctors at Winston Medical Center in Louisville, Mississippi.
Scans revealed a mass in his chest wall. On May 14, as UWA was hosting Albany State in the first round of the NCAA South Region, Ward was getting a biopsy, which revealed he had a form of bone cancer called Ewing’s sarcoma.
“It was a type of cancer found in children, so it was real rare for me,” said Ward, who was 23 at the time.
His one inning of relief work on May 2 in the GSC Championship proved to be his last as a baseball player.
“It was a difficult time for me and my family,” Ward said. “We’d just won the conference tournament. I’d just graduated from college. I was on that high getting ready to go play in the Regional and I get the news that I have cancer. At that time, I had to make one of the hardest decisions in my life to quit playing the game that I’d played my whole life and take on the battle of my life.”
Ward fit the protocol to enter treatment at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, where he received treatment from May 2015 until July 2016. He and his mother lived in Memphis while receiving treatment.
“It was a great experience. The hospital there is like no other. They take care of their patients and their families. My team of doctors did a great job taking care of me and making sure all of my needs were met. My family never received a bill for any of the treatment, the housing or travel we had to do. St. Jude covered everything at no cost for us,” Ward said. “It was a blessing to be able to go to St. Jude and not have to worry about the burden of how I was going to pay for the treatment I was receiving.”
In the fall of 2015, Ward was unable to be in Livingston when the UWA team was presented its 2015 GSC rings, so head coach
Gary Rundles and his wife, Joan, made the four hour trip north to personally deliver it at St. Jude – a moment that meant a lot to Ward.
“He’s family. He meant a lot for our program,” Rundles said. “I wanted him to know that he was a vital part of the success of that team and we were supporting him and were going to be there until the very end.”
Because of the age difference, Ward said most of the younger kids looked up to him and they were able to interact during his stay, especially when it came to the ring.
“They kids loved it. They all wanted to put it on their finger and wear it. It was a great time to interact with the kids and see that something I’d achieved in my life could bring joy to them,” Ward said.
Ward has been clear of all signs of cancer since July 2016 and returns every three months for scans. His last test was the first week of March 2018.
While he was not due back until June 2018, Ward, now in his second season as a graduate assistant at UWA, returned to St. Jude on March 23 with the entire Tiger Baseball team as part of their weekend trip to Christian Brothers University. He reached out to St. Jude and set up a tour of the facility and hospital.
“It was a real great experience to go there and give back to a place that has done so much for me,” Ward said. “I wanted to do it to let the team see the great things that are being done at St. Jude. I thought it would be a great eye-opening experience for our guys … They didn’t realize what all goes into having cancer and what these kids are facing and battling every day and how amazing it is the way they are able to handle themselves, because they are fighting for their lives.”
Ward said some of the players had a chance to interact with children who were roaming the halls between appointments.
“What we saw and the work that they did for Brock is one of the reasons I wanted to take our team up there and let them go through the facility and see firsthand not only what they did for Brock but everyone. To make our players aware that cancer is being treated, it’s being fought and it’s being done right in our backdoor,” Rundles said.
Rundles says Ward has “done an outstanding job” as a graduate assistant these past two seasons and has been able to use his experience and his faith as a teaching tool for the players.
“Athletes every day, especially in the game of baseball, deal with failure a whole lot. Brock has been able to relay to them that striking out with the bases loaded or giving up a hit or the winning run, that kind of thing, is a part of an athlete’s life they don’t want to go through, but there is another day and a tomorrow,” Rundles said. “He’s talked a lot about what he’s been through. His athletic career was cut short, but he tells them every day that didn’t make him stop doing what he wanted to do, and that’s his love for the game of baseball and to coach it.”
Ward will graduate with his master’s in sports management in May 2018 and continue his pursuit of a career coaching baseball.
Follow Megginson on Twitter @jcmeggs. Email comments to megginsonjc@gmail.com.
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2017-18 Friday Features Archive
September 1 |
Mississippi College
September 8 |
Montevallo
September 15 |
Valdosta State
September 22 |
West Georgia
September 29 |
Alabama Huntsville
October 6 |
Union
October 13 |
West Alabama
October 20 |
West Florida
October 27 |
Delta State
November 3 |
Christian Brothers
November 10 |
Shorter
November 17 |
North Alabama
November 24 |
Lee
December 1 |
AUM
December 8 |
West Florida
Decemeber 15 |
Mississippi College
December 22 |
Lee
December 29 |
West Alabama
January 5 |
Valdosta State
January 12 |
Christian Brothers
January 19 |
Montevallo
January 26 |
AUM
February 2 |
Mississippi College
February 9 |
West Florida
February 16 |
North Alabama
February 23 |
Alabama Huntsville
March 2 |
Broadcasters
March 9 |
Delta State
March 16 |
Alabama Huntsville
March 23 |
Lee