The pluck of the Irish: Dubose survives, thrives

Photo by: William D. Lewis

The Vindicator (Youngstown)

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Former Ursuline basketball player Jordan Dubose stands on the sidelines as the Irish practice Monday at Ursuline High School.

The Vindicator (Youngstown)

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Ursuline senior Jordan Dubose, shown here playing against East in November, 2009, has battled back from bone cancer to serve as an inspiration for this year's district champs.

By Joe Scalzo

scalzo@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

“When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.”;

— Dr. Theodore Woodward

Early February, 2010. An Ursuline junior named Jordan Dubose is running up and down the court at basketball practice, complaining to Irish coach Keith Gunther that his right knee is bothering him. It’s been bugging him for months, actually, but he figures it’s just shin splints.

Hey, he’s almost 6-foot-5. He can grow two inches in two hours. Soreness comes with the size.

But this feels worse than usual.

Gunther tells him to suck it up. Tells him to play through it. That’s his job, to get the most of out kids like Dubose.

So Dubose sucks it up. Keeps practicing. Then he bangs his knee. And it swells up. And he keeps practicing.

Then he bangs it again. And it swells up to the point where he can barely walk. And his life changes forever, only he doesn’t know it yet.

Because when you’re a healthy 17-year-old with a swelled knee, you think sprain, not cancer.

You think horses, not zebras.

On Feb. 7, 2010, in the midst of a snowstorm that was strong enough to cancel school, Dubose asked his grandmother to drive him to the hospital to get his knee checked. Doctors did an X-ray and took blood work.

They didn’t like what they saw.

“They came in and told me it was a tumor,” Dubose said. “I was still like, ‘OK, that’s nothing too bad. I’m still feeling all right.’

“But that’s when everything went up in the air.”

Dubose drove to Akron to meet with some oncologists. They took a biopsy. They found bone cancer, an aggressive form called osteosarcoma.

Then they told him the whole story. He was never going to play basketball again. He had to have a knee replacement or he was going to lose his leg. And if he didn’t do one of those two things, he was going to lose his life.

Truth was, losing basketball was just like losing his leg. They were going to take a part of him that he was never going to get back.

“I started playing basketball at the YMCA when I was 4,” said Dubose, a double-digit scorer who was a varsity starter as a sophomore. “So for someone to tell me I would I would never play against, that I wouldn’t do the things I do. ...”

One of the first people Dubose told was his classmate and teammate, DeVonte Jenkins. (“That was just a really sad moment,” Jenkins said.) Another close teammate, Atiim Smith, found out when he went to practice and saw the look on Gunther’s face. (“You could tell something was wrong,” he said.)

And as Gunther tried to tell his players, all he could think was, “Was this my fault?”

“It was a shell-shock not only to me, but to the whole team,” Gunther said. “And it showed in how we played. All the sudden, basketball’s not really that important.

“I was to the point, really, where I was asking, ‘Do I want to do this anymore?’”

Dubose left school on Feb. 22. He started chemotherapy on March 7, right around the time the Irish lost in the sectional finals. He went to prom in May but only stayed for 20 minutes because he got an infection and had to be rushed to the hospital.

He had surgery on June 3. Doctors removed his knee several inches above and below the joint. It’s now metal. He spent most of the summer indoors, with his leg straight since he couldn’t bend his knee. He often passed out because of the chemotherapy.

“I was isolated,” he said, “and I’m not an isolated kind of guy.”

But whenever someone visited or called or texted, he stayed positive. He ended every text to Gunther with a smiley face. He ended every call with “Don’t worry coach, I’m going to be fine.”

His grandparents, Mosco and Carol Dubose and Elzenia Lampley made sure he didn’t miss an appointment. They brought him fried chicken and macaroni and cheese and Carabba’s pasta and Chick-Fil-A because he wouldn’t eat the hospital food. Patricia DiLoretto, a teacher at Chaney, served as his home tutor to make sure he graduated on time. (“She was so wonderful to me,” Dubose said, “and still is.”) Ursuline made T-shirts and held “Jordan Dubose Day.” The team sewed No. 45 patches on their jerseys.

Slowly, the cancer lost.

“Fortunately for him and me both, we’re believers [in Christ],” Gunther said. “And I think he relied on that a lot.

“Sometimes you wonder why it happens to any kid, but why a kid like that? But he’s been an inspiration.”

On Monday afternoon, a little more than a year after starting chemo, Dubose walked into Ursuline high school to watch his former team prepare for tonight’s Division III regional final.

If this were a movie, Dubose would change into his uniform and practice. But it’s not. He just resumed driving and he’s started walking up stairs but the doctors were right. He won’t play basketball again.

So he does the next best thing. He comes to every game. He tells Jenkins to play every game like its his last. And to cut his hair. (“He’s a very funny guy,” Jenkins said, smiling.)

And last Friday, when the Irish beat Campbell to win their first district title since 2008, he was the last one introduced at the medal presentation, earning the biggest ovation.

“Sometimes one of our guys will get a little tired or bruised and I’m like, ‘Seriously, you want to whine about something? You’ve got your friend over there who can’t play,’” Gunther said. “He’s still a part of this team and we’re just hoping he can be part of something even more special. ”

Dubose is, currently, cancer-free. He’s on track to graduate in June with a 3.8 grade point average. He’s narrowed his college choices to Akron and Duquesne and while he originally planned to major in business, he’s seriously considering pre-med.

He sometimes wonders “What if?” but that works both ways. Because if he hadn’t banged his knee, if it hadn’t swelled up, the cancer could have spread to his lungs. And then it might have been too late.

“My grandparents kept telling me, ‘Don’t worry, you’re gonna get better. God has something else for you in store,’” said Dubose, who then laughs and adds, “I have to do something. I’m not going to be a bum.”

“We always talk about why things happen and we don’t know the reason yet,” Gunther added. “It will have its purpose down the line.

“You watch. He’s going to help somebody with that disease someday.”