Jessica Stauring’s look was one of wide-eyed amazement. The Bensalem senior had just discovered that her field hockey coach – 26-year-old Amanda Tu – is a cancer survivor.
“She kind of nonchalantly told me,” Stauring said. “I couldn’t believe it. I was like, ‘You what? What?’
“It’s amazing. You would never be able to tell, ever. It’s just remarkable.”
Tu gives a new face to cancer. She is young, she is energetic, and she is the picture of good health.
“You think of (cancer) as really depressing, in the hospital and basically on your death bed,” Stauring said. “I think she helps the world of cancer. She shows other patients they don’t have to sit in their house and feel sorry for themselves.
“She’s out there all the time, she teaches (school), and she does everything she loves. She doesn’t act any differently because of it. She’s still hard on us if we’re not playing well, and she still gets mad if we’re not playing up to our potential. It doesn’t change the way she coaches. She doesn’t let it define her.”
Tu recently completed her third year as Bensalem’s head coach, and according to Stauring, the Owls’ coach works as hard as her players at practice.
“When she took over, it was my sophomore year,” Stauring said. “Every year, we’re here for preseason at 6:30 in the morning, and she’s right here with us. She runs with us, she’ll do activities with us.
“It’s just unbelievable.”
Stauring heard the news that Tu is a cancer survivor less than 24 hours after the Owls ‘Corner for a Cure’ contest when they played their first ever night game in the football stadium.
“I just think it’s nice she did that,” Stauring said of Tu, who orchestrated the event. “It’s a way to give back to the community. It’s not just, ‘We’re a field hockey team. We play field hockey for the school.’ It was nice to have that on Senior Night and in the stadium.
“She definitely went all out – she made signs and ribbons. It got information out, and it was really nice too.”
Tu’s fingerprints were all over the event. Instead of focusing on October’s theme of breast cancer awareness, the night focused on 12 different types of cancer. Each player wore ribbons in their hair and on their shoes representing different forms of the disease.
“Everyone already knows about breast cancer,” Tu said. “It’s knowing the other ones.
“A lot of them have their own stories how they know friends or family members who have cancer.”
For one player, sophomore Amanda Morton, the night was very personal.
“Three family members of mine have or have had cancer,” she said. “My pop-pop recently was diagnosed with cancer, so he’s in the hospital right now.”
Morton’s other grandfather lost his battle to colon cancer, and her grandmother is a breast cancer survivor. Interestingly, one of the ribbons Morton wore – chosen at random – was blue, representing colon cancer.
“It’s crazy,” she said. “Right now, it’s pretty emotional for me.
“I think that game was my best game – just supporting cancer and our first night game. It was such an honor to be in the varsity game. I was so excited.” Read on....
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Amanda Tu is the picture of health and vitality. She can drive a hockey ball with the best of them, and on a picture-perfect fall day, the Bensalem coach – who could almost be mistaken for a player - is directing her team through its final practice of the season. Everything looks perfectly normal.
And everything is perfectly normal, but it wasn’t always that way for Tu.
At the age of 22, Tu, less than a year out of college, discovered a lump. Tests revealed she had Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a form of cancer that most often affects young people.
“Right away, I had to make a couple of big decisions,” she said. “I was a little shocked. You don’t expect it.”
Tu underwent chemotherapy, receiving treatments every other week for four months. Not surprisingly, Tu didn’t let this setback slow her down. She continued teaching, taking only time away from work to receive the actual treatment.
A language arts teacher at Immanuel Lutheran School in Philadelphia, Tu received support from her co-workers, who raised $2,500 to be used towards her expenses.
“I stayed positive throughout the whole thing, and so did my family,” she said. “I didn’t really talk about it. I went through the motions. Every day was the same day. I still did what I was supposed to do.”
After completing chemotherapy, Tu began a month of radiation treatments. By that time, preseason for field hockey was getting underway.
“I’m not going to lie – I was grouchy some days, but they didn’t know why,” she said.
Tu opted to keep her battle with cancer to herself. Until very recently.
“I didn’t want anyone to think differently or feel differently,” she said. “Even when I had it – the team I had three years ago didn’t really know either. The older girls knew what was up.”
The younger ones – like Stauring – didn’t.
“She’s the type of person – she wouldn’t have told anybody,” said Stauring, noting that no one could have possibly guessed. “She’s in really good physical condition. She still plays field hockey for a team.
“She wouldn’t want us to think we couldn’t treat her like a normal team would treat their coach – like get mad at her when she makes us run. She wouldn’t want a relationship like that.”
Tu, who continues to have regular checkups, is in remission, and she admits that her life has changed as a result of her encounter with cancer.
“I definitely matured,” she said. “You look at things differently.
“You know who cares about you, who is there to help you. Without my parents and my family, it would have been a lot harder. My mother went to every doctor appointment, every treatment. If she didn’t my sister or brother or grandma went with me.”
Has it given her a greater appreciation of life?
“I’ve always appreciated it,” she said. “I look at things differently.
“Now when I hear people complain about stuff, it’s like, ‘Really, is that bad?’ It gives you a new perspective.”
For a young coach who is building Bensalem’s program from the ground up, that’s an important lesson to convey to her eager players.
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