This month's featured hardshell is Brian Carroll ('02), who shared an amazing story of support from his fellow Terps. Brian is currently undergoing chemotherapy to treat testicular cancer, which he was diagnosed with earlier this year. After Brian moved to a new house in Long Island with his family a few weeks back, four Terps from his class at Maryland made the trip up to tackle some house projects. Mike Mollot, Andy Capelle, Rob Hoffman and Matt Urlock built out bedroom closets for his two kids, hung an inside door and replaced a broken back storm door among other tasks around the house. Brian is now on a mission to raise money for those who can't afford cancer treatment. Please consider giving to Brian's CancerCare page, linked here.   

How did this weekend home improvement project came to be? Was this a surprise or did your former teammates reach out to you?

"When I had first learned of my diagnosis, my wife and I had just moved from Hoboken in the city to Rockville Centre near where I grew up on Long Island. So we were going from a from a two-bedroom apartment to much bigger space. I knew I had this cancer, and I told my buddies about it. You can go about treating it a couple of different ways. Just having the surgery and you're done, or surgery plus chemotherapy if it spreads. Mine spread through my body so I had to go through chemotherapy. Now I have six weeks left of a nine-week treatment. So that's when I told my buddies when I found out I needed chemotherapy, one of my buddies reached out to me and heard that I had just moved so they said the four of us are coming up. I knew they were coming up, but I didn't know exactly what they were going to do – I figured they were just going to come, have a night away from their families and have some beers – but no they came in and said we're going to get things done for you. They showed up here on that Thursday morning right before I was about to go to treatment, so I hopped in their car and they drove me off to treatment which was cool."

 

Since you got this diagnosis, describe the love and support you've gotten from the Maryland lacrosse community?

"It's been pretty awesome. I stay fairly active with alumni and most of the crew a couple years before and after I played. I played at Lake Placid a couple years with a bunch of guys, go to golf outings whenever I can – I went this past year – so I've always been connected to the guys that weren't in my immediate crew. But as soon as I put it on my Instagram or Facebook what I've been dealing with – I've been trying to raise money for a charity called cancer cares – but I did that for two reasons, one so people would know why I looked a lot different once my hair started falling out. So I put it out there on social media and there was an immediate wave of support. Tons of guys were reaching out on Facebook and Instagram. So the night I was out with those four guys my phone was lighting up. We had this group text that started up right after Big Man's [Dick Eddell] wake. So there was probably 25 of us that got connected back in June on a group text. And that kind of got revived. I was get messages from guys like, "Go BC, go kick ass." And just dozens of individual people have reached out that didn't have my number, a couple of the fathers of the guys I played with…it's just a really cool feeling." 

Something positive that's come out of this diagnosis for you has been raising money for others who can't afford  the costs of treatment. What inspired you to want to raise money for others going through what you are?

"The first night I went into my surgery at the hospital, thankfully I have savings and good insurance – and I work in the insurance business so I know how to read that bill. But the way the hospital presented me with that bill, the way the woman looked at me like she was almost about to go to my own funeral saying, 'I'm so sorry I have to do this.' But I looked at it and thought I can read this bill and it's not too bad. But I could just imagine someone in a different situation looking at that bill about to go into surgery already in a heightened state of anxiety and now you have to deal with a huge bill. There's a really crazy stat out there that 65-70% of Americans would have to go to their credit card to afford anything more than a $500 payment. So I just think to myself how many people who have cancer would be terrified when they realize they can't even afford treatment. So I wanted to do something and raise money, so I went and vetted a few different charities to find where the highest percentage of donation would go to the person in need. So I landed on CancerCare. They're in about 80  different counties and they gave out something like 41 million dollars in patient funding last year alone. And it's been awesome. I put out [the link to my fundraising page] to just my work and within the first day I exceeded my original goal – so I thought I have to set my number a little higher. So then I kicked it out to friends and family and put it on LinkedIn. My first day of chemo I put a picture of me in front of the cancer treatment center and the link out there, and the response there was just incredible – like 90,000 page views. So it was pretty cool seeing the post go semi viral, and people I didn't even know where donating."         

What are some of your fondest memories from your playing days? What did you love about being a Terp?

"What did I love about being a Terp? I wish that could be a short answer – but it's the camaraderie above everything. You were just always connected. You had your immediate crew of guys, but you had the broader team as well."