Derrick Colter shoots over Bluefield State’s Avery Holliday on Saturday. — DAVE DeNOMA / DUQUESNE ATHLETICS
DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS
No sooner had the basketball been launched from Derrick Colter’s fingertips than he was hacked by Bluefield State’s Avery Holliday. Hard enough that Duquesne’s gifted junior guard fell back onto the A.J. Palumbo Center court and was wholly horizontal by the time that ball touched twine.
Even with the rest of his body prone, Colter’s arms shot up, raised in triumph.
Did he see the 3-pointer?
“Just kind of felt it,” he’d confess to me later with an aw-shucks grin. “All I saw was ceiling.”
Quite the raise-the-roof moment, if you will.
And no, not because played an infinitesimal part in the Dukes pounding a badly overmatched opponent, 91-51, in the university’s 99th season opener Saturday.
Not because it would be one of a career-high seven 3-pointers, one shy of the school record.
Not because he’d spike up to a career-high 26 points after averaging 9.3 last season.
Not even because the game of his life was occurring on this extraordinary young man’s official return from a five-month battle with cancer — non-Hodgkin lymphoma — that involved 20 consecutive days of radiation treatment.
“It was the shot. That’s it,” Colter said. “When I put up a shot, I want it to fall. So when it went down after I got knocked down, yeah, I enjoyed it a little.”
Believe it.
“Basketball is what got Derrick through this,” Jim Ferry, Duquesne’s coach said. “He’s always been about basketball, and he always will be. He won’t let anything else define him.”
____________________
If anyone truly wishes to understand how Colter or the Penguins’ Olli Maatta or any top-level athlete stricken with a disease as serious as cancer always somehow seems capable of shrugging it off so much easier than the layman, this is the answer: They’re already amazingly mentally tough just to achieve what they have in sport.
“There’s a resiliency you have to build up, just by nature,” Vic Bauer, Duquesne’s longtime athletic trainer, was saying. “Now, some are tougher than others, obviously. I’ve treated players who will freak out over a hangnail. So Derrick deserves all kinds of credit. He’s one of the toughest I’ve ever been around. But absolutely, being an accomplished athlete is something that carries you through.”
Colter acknowledged as much, too: “You’ve got to be really focused with what you want to do in life. You really do. You’ve got to go for it. I’ve always wanted to go to the next level, to the pros, so I’ve never stopped working, never stopped believing in my game.”
And how much did it help through the summer?
“Aw, man …”
He just shook his head. No need to answer that one.
To be sure, there’s nothing pleasant to revisit: Colter first felt the lump in his neck, about the size of a gumball, in March. He didn’t think much of it until March 8 when, before a game against George Mason, he told Bauer about it as Bauer was taping his ankles. Everything stopped. Bauer checked it himself then, without alarming Colter on the spot, waited until Colter had gone out for warmups to text Dr. Eric Anish, Duquesne’s team doctor.
Remember that name, please.
Dr. Anish ordered a biopsy and, beginning May 1, Colter had to go to Shadyside Hospital 20 consecutive days for radiation. Bauer would drive him. Ferry would be there. His fellow Dukes would be there. And his parents, James and Angela Colter, committed to spending so much time in Pittsburgh away from their home in Hyattsville, Md., that Ferry put them up at his house.
“At Duquesne, we’re all a family,” Ferry said.
The radiation took its toll. The doctors and Ferry gave their blessing for Colter to keep up his basketball routine, so he’d occasionally take to the Palumbo floor to shoot some Js. But more often than not, his spirits ranged between sleepy and sick. And from a psychological perspective, he could never truly rest easy until June 24, the day doctors informed him that his cancer was in remission.
And yet, never in that chronology was there any pouting. Colter wasn’t raised that way, certainly not in a home where his older brother J.J. died at age 33 to complications from cerebral palsy. To this day, Colter inscribes his brother’s initials on his gym shoes.
He wore them again Saturday, when he put down those seven 3s on eight attempts and piled up 26 points. Not many were there to see it, just 2,397, indicative of the long-moribund state of basketball. Only two media outlets, including this one, covered it. But there couldn’t have been a happier place in sports on this day.
When the game ended, in the home locker room, the players cheered, chanted and piled onto Colter to celebrate for him, not for themselves.
Ferry described the scene elegantly and emotionally: “The season’s finally here. We get to play a game. And yet, we’ve already had the biggest victory of all. The kid is cancer-free. DC is a great kid. I think we all learned and grew from his experience. And now to see him out on the court and to play as well as he did …”
The coach cut himself off as he began to choke up. And he wasn’t alone.
“I’m so proud to be DC’s teammate,” point guard Micah Mason said. “We all are.”
The only one not remotely emotional was the one being fussed over.
“I just don’t believe in feeling sorry for yourself,” Colter said. “If you ask me, I’ve been blessed. If you ask me, this is a blessed day.”
This was part of our conversation:
As he continued speaking, he looked around Palumbo, now mostly empty but for the Duquesne pep band packing up their brass. And he looked toward the basket where he hit that 3.
“I’m here. I’m back where I belong.”
____________________
The other advantage that high-level athletes have, of course, is that they’re always around doctors, usually some of the best in the country.
So let it not go unappreciated that Dr. Anish also was the one who discovered Maatta’s far smaller bump on the neck in September, as part of the Penguins’ training camp physicals, and guided him through his own surgical process.
Very soon, Maatta will have his own Colter moment.
Very touching column, DK. It puts today's games, with the highs and lows, in their proper perspectives. Cancer has touched us all in some way and stories like this are what drives others to face their battles with the same fight and determination as Derrick and Olli.
Great stuff DK! Good luck to this kid, someone everyone, can and should be rooting for. Thank goodness this doctor is as spot on in his craft as you are DK. You tell a great story!
As a former player, I could literally hear the swish of the net as I was reading this column DK. Great column. This young man is a winner in the game of life.
Well, as I sit here in UPMC Shadyside getting copious amounts of chemotherapy for multiple myeloma (a blood plasma cancer), I appreciate the column. It is always inspiring to see someone overcome cancer and be able to achieve goals set before being diagnosed. It encourages me.
So glad I subscribed to ur website. It's columns like this that make u put things into perspective. Well done as usual. Here's to hoping that both young men live a long and prosperous life
DK, thank you for sharing Derrick's touching story. His determination and focus is admirable. Much respect also to Coach Ferry and the Duquesne community for their unselfish support to Derrick and his family. Dr. Anish is saving lives, young lives who have so much ahead of them!
Wow Dejan. What a story. It was as much of a shocker as the ending to the Pens game but it really puts it into perspective.
When I got to the part about his brother… well, I was as speechless as earlier tonight.
When you brought to around to the even younger Olli… I was thanking the dr. out loud.
This was beautifully written. I hope everyone reads it.
On a lighter note, while watching the video I became hypnotized!
Whatever the team's prospects may be for the season in terms of wins, its sure to be a great one because of this comeback. And thanks for the focus on the Dukes, DK. They're usually mostly ignored around here, it will be nice to get some real reporting on them.
That's what is great about DK on PS ! If in the print media I would have bypassed but with DK's prodding it proved to be as he advertised,outstanding ! My prayers for you Craig !!!
November 15, 2014
Column: Colter vs. cancer? Nothing but net
by Dejan Kovacevic • Columns • Duquesne, Penguins
Derrick Colter shoots over Bluefield State’s Avery Holliday on Saturday. — DAVE DeNOMA / DUQUESNE ATHLETICS
DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS
No sooner had the basketball been launched from Derrick Colter’s fingertips than he was hacked by Bluefield State’s Avery Holliday. Hard enough that Duquesne’s gifted junior guard fell back onto the A.J. Palumbo Center court and was wholly horizontal by the time that ball touched twine.
Even with the rest of his body prone, Colter’s arms shot up, raised in triumph.
Did he see the 3-pointer?
“Just kind of felt it,” he’d confess to me later with an aw-shucks grin. “All I saw was ceiling.”
Quite the raise-the-roof moment, if you will.
And no, not because played an infinitesimal part in the Dukes pounding a badly overmatched opponent, 91-51, in the university’s 99th season opener Saturday.
Not because it would be one of a career-high seven 3-pointers, one shy of the school record.
Not because he’d spike up to a career-high 26 points after averaging 9.3 last season.
Not even because the game of his life was occurring on this extraordinary young man’s official return from a five-month battle with cancer — non-Hodgkin lymphoma — that involved 20 consecutive days of radiation treatment.
“It was the shot. That’s it,” Colter said. “When I put up a shot, I want it to fall. So when it went down after I got knocked down, yeah, I enjoyed it a little.”
Believe it.
“Basketball is what got Derrick through this,” Jim Ferry, Duquesne’s coach said. “He’s always been about basketball, and he always will be. He won’t let anything else define him.”
____________________
If anyone truly wishes to understand how Colter or the Penguins’ Olli Maatta or any top-level athlete stricken with a disease as serious as cancer always somehow seems capable of shrugging it off so much easier than the layman, this is the answer: They’re already amazingly mentally tough just to achieve what they have in sport.
“There’s a resiliency you have to build up, just by nature,” Vic Bauer, Duquesne’s longtime athletic trainer, was saying. “Now, some are tougher than others, obviously. I’ve treated players who will freak out over a hangnail. So Derrick deserves all kinds of credit. He’s one of the toughest I’ve ever been around. But absolutely, being an accomplished athlete is something that carries you through.”
Colter acknowledged as much, too: “You’ve got to be really focused with what you want to do in life. You really do. You’ve got to go for it. I’ve always wanted to go to the next level, to the pros, so I’ve never stopped working, never stopped believing in my game.”
And how much did it help through the summer?
“Aw, man …”
He just shook his head. No need to answer that one.
To be sure, there’s nothing pleasant to revisit: Colter first felt the lump in his neck, about the size of a gumball, in March. He didn’t think much of it until March 8 when, before a game against George Mason, he told Bauer about it as Bauer was taping his ankles. Everything stopped. Bauer checked it himself then, without alarming Colter on the spot, waited until Colter had gone out for warmups to text Dr. Eric Anish, Duquesne’s team doctor.
Remember that name, please.
Dr. Anish ordered a biopsy and, beginning May 1, Colter had to go to Shadyside Hospital 20 consecutive days for radiation. Bauer would drive him. Ferry would be there. His fellow Dukes would be there. And his parents, James and Angela Colter, committed to spending so much time in Pittsburgh away from their home in Hyattsville, Md., that Ferry put them up at his house.
“At Duquesne, we’re all a family,” Ferry said.
The radiation took its toll. The doctors and Ferry gave their blessing for Colter to keep up his basketball routine, so he’d occasionally take to the Palumbo floor to shoot some Js. But more often than not, his spirits ranged between sleepy and sick. And from a psychological perspective, he could never truly rest easy until June 24, the day doctors informed him that his cancer was in remission.
And yet, never in that chronology was there any pouting. Colter wasn’t raised that way, certainly not in a home where his older brother J.J. died at age 33 to complications from cerebral palsy. To this day, Colter inscribes his brother’s initials on his gym shoes.
He wore them again Saturday, when he put down those seven 3s on eight attempts and piled up 26 points. Not many were there to see it, just 2,397, indicative of the long-moribund state of basketball. Only two media outlets, including this one, covered it. But there couldn’t have been a happier place in sports on this day.
When the game ended, in the home locker room, the players cheered, chanted and piled onto Colter to celebrate for him, not for themselves.
Ferry described the scene elegantly and emotionally: “The season’s finally here. We get to play a game. And yet, we’ve already had the biggest victory of all. The kid is cancer-free. DC is a great kid. I think we all learned and grew from his experience. And now to see him out on the court and to play as well as he did …”
The coach cut himself off as he began to choke up. And he wasn’t alone.
“I’m so proud to be DC’s teammate,” point guard Micah Mason said. “We all are.”
The only one not remotely emotional was the one being fussed over.
“I just don’t believe in feeling sorry for yourself,” Colter said. “If you ask me, I’ve been blessed. If you ask me, this is a blessed day.”
This was part of our conversation:
As he continued speaking, he looked around Palumbo, now mostly empty but for the Duquesne pep band packing up their brass. And he looked toward the basket where he hit that 3.
“I’m here. I’m back where I belong.”
____________________
The other advantage that high-level athletes have, of course, is that they’re always around doctors, usually some of the best in the country.
So let it not go unappreciated that Dr. Anish also was the one who discovered Maatta’s far smaller bump on the neck in September, as part of the Penguins’ training camp physicals, and guided him through his own surgical process.
Very soon, Maatta will have his own Colter moment.
Blessed, indeed.