BOARDMAN Hope-giving program recalls cancer victim

NATE -- Not Alone, it's a Team Effort -- will provide 200 tickets to Giants baseball games.
By JOHN W. GOODWIN Jr.
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
BOARDMAN -- A Boardman man who lost his battle with cancer three years ago will be remembered far into the future with an annual San Francisco-based program, created to instill hope and encourage those fighting cancer.
Nate Thomae grew up in Boardman and graduated in 1991 from Boardman High Schoo. He earned bachelor's degrees in psychology and history at Youngstown State University.
Thomae's sister Reyna remembers her brother as a jokester who enjoyed music, collected movies and loved baseball. Reyna Thomae said it was during a league baseball game that her brother first realized the cancer that would eventually take his life.
Reyna Thomae said her brother was stretching after the game and felt a tightness in the back of his leg. He worked out the pain, she said, but later that same day felt a lump in the back of his leg. A doctor confirmed that the lump was Leiomyosarcoma, a rare form of soft tissue cancer.
"The odds were against him and he said that, if that were the case, he might as well try new things that wouldn't make him sicker. He tried homeopathic treatment at first, later moving to chemotherapy and radiation," Reyna Thomae remembers. "My brother was unique, he always smiled, never complained and battled this thing until the end."
The end would come two years later, ending Nate Thomae's life in 1998 when he was 25.
Program: Family member Vivian Smith, however, was determined the story would not end there. Smith, director of physician services at O'Connor Hospital in San Francisco, encouraged that hospital and the San Francisco Giants baseball team to start a program for others fighting cancer in the name of Nate Thomae.
The NATE program, or "Not Alone, it's a Team Effort," was born shortly after. The program, offered to O'Connor Hospital patients, is designed to offer hope and encouragement to cancer patients.
As part of the program, the Giants baseball team will distribute 200 complimentary tickets to one of the team's home games to cancer patients.
Before game time, lunch will be served to all participants in the stadium, and T-shirts will be distributed. Participants will be recognized during the game.
The first NATE program was Saturday when the Giants took on the Colorado Rockies in San Francisco. Reyna Thomae is hoping similar programs come into play across the country.
"I am hoping that when people see the program, they will realize that, hey, there are kids in their areas who would love to spend a day at the ball park. It's such a great program," she said.