Cancer can't keep Cal goalie off soccer field
Less than year after lymphoma diagnosis LaFontaine-Kussmann playing
 Ben Margot / AP Jorden LaFontaine-Kussmann holds her 8-week-old rat terrier Leo. After being sidelined with cancer during last year's college soccer season at Cal, LaFontaine-Kussmann is still finding her way on the field, bouncing between No. 2 and 3 on Cal's depth chart. |
BERKELEY, Calif. - The puffy, inch-long pink scar is near her right collarbone.
It reminds Jorden LaFontaine-Kussmann of her chemotherapy treatment and the cancer that kept her from college soccer last season at California.
“It’s good and bad. It defines me, but it’s also kind of tough,” the redshirt freshman goalkeeper said. “It’s not my favorite thing.”
Less than a year after her lymphoma diagnosis at 18, LaFontaine-Kussmann is back on the field. She’s still finding her way, bouncing between No. 2 and 3 on the Golden Bears’ depth chart. But after months of conditioning and rebuilding her muscles, she now knows she can keep up in practice and compete in games.
“It feels like it was so long ago, especially now that I’m fully back into soccer and getting all my fitness back,” she said. “The only reminder to me is my hair being short. I miss the long hair.”
LaFontaine-Kussmann still has CT scans every two months to make sure the cancer hasn’t returned, but they’ve all been clear so far. The next one will come in early November. Eventually, the scans will go to every three months, then to twice a year.
It’s been a long process, and LaFontaine-Kussmann isn’t the most patient person. The cancer, though, forced her hand. Her oncologist emphasizes that she needs to concentrate on staying healthy. The soccer part will get there in time.
“That’s what’s frustrating. I’m very competitive,” she said. “But at the same time, I’ve made a full recovery in such a short period of time. I have to be patient; I’ve become more patient. I have to remind myself I’m ahead of schedule right now. It’s crazy to think of all the chemicals (I had in me). Luckily I was in really good shape when I had all this done.”
She was diagnosed with lymphoma — an aggressive cancer that can respond well to treatment — on Oct. 5, 2007. She had the first of six chemotherapy sessions a week later to attack a large mass in the middle of her chest.
She refused to feel sorry for herself, certain she would beat the cancer and play again. The alternative was never an option. Those who know her best never doubted it for a second.
“As weird as it is, it started when she heard the word cancer. She could either roll over or say, ’What’s next?”’ said Kelly Bendixen, her personal goalkeeping coach for the past decade back home near Tacoma, Wash.
“That was her decision and I just helped her along. Cancer’s not a pretty game. It beat on her pretty heavily. We started running and she could only go for two minutes. Then she got to 20 minutes, then 45 minutes and an hour. She felt great coming back into this season. She just knew.
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Across the country at the University of Miami, goalie Austen Everett also is back on the soccer field following chemotherapy. This past spring doctors found a football-sized mass in her stomach that was causing her back pain. The tumor was non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
LaFontaine-Kussmann stayed in school and never wore the wig she bought. She instead went for an array of beanie hats to keep her head warm last winter. Her sister, Kari, moved to the Bay Area from Washington state to help.
LaFontaine-Kussmann — known by teammates and friends as “Jorde” — received T-shirts, cards and well wishes from coaches and players across the country. The men’s water polo and football teams at Cal signed posters that still hang on the walls in her apartment, about a five-minute walk from the soccer field. Several men’s soccer players shaved their heads in support last fall.
“She wore a smile every day. Nobody knows the hell that she went through,” said her mother, Didi Kussmann. “She has had so many wonderful people in her life. I feel like she really made a statement. Throughout this whole thing, she has been so incredibly strong.”
Her radiation ended in mid-March, and her hair began growing back in February after she completed her chemo.
The one-year anniversary of her diagnosis was a big deal. Now LaFontaine-Kussmann is back doing what she arrived at Cal to do, right on track in her psychology studies. She’s doing it with a smile and with her teammates and others she’ll never meet cheering her each day.
“Yeah, I’ve come a long way,” she said, letting out a deep breath. “I never doubted it. Sometimes it’s what really kept me going. I never thought there was a chance I wouldn’t be back.”
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