TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida State softball coach Lonni Alameda sits simply exterior the primary ready room at Tallahassee Memorial Most cancers Heart with a black cap pulled low over her bald head and a protracted grey sweater preserving her heat. She readies her bag, loaded with notes and her laptop computer, so she will begin breaking down recreation tape as soon as she will get settled.
“Alana?” a nurse calls.
She picks up her bag, strides over and smiles at listening to her given title. The softball world is aware of her as both Lonni or “Coacha,” the nickname her gamers use.
On this explicit day in April, she is led by means of the doorways and into a much bigger pod within the nook, the home windows providing a view of the timber exterior. The nurse attracts the curtains, providing some privateness. Although nothing hints at who she is, the workers is aware of. The nurse begins peppering her with questions on how she feels to verify she shouldn’t be overdoing issues at work.
Alameda assures them she is doing simply high quality. The nurse begins testing her blood stress, taking her temperature and studying outcomes from a blood take a look at she was given earlier within the morning — all to make sure she is able to obtain her subsequent chemo therapy for breast most cancers.
Since mid-March, this has change into her routine each Monday, arriving on the hospital between 7:30 and eight a.m. so she will get house by early afternoon. Each week, she inches nearer to not solely beating most cancers however reaching the last word purpose on the sector: one other journey to the Ladies’s Faculty World Sequence. That quest has reached its pivotal second, beginning Friday towards Texas Tech within the tremendous regionals.
It doesn’t matter what occurs this weekend, a second cycle of remedies awaits after the WCWS in June. That cycle entails an much more potent chemo drug, Adriamycin, often known as “The Crimson Satan” due to its coloration and potential to accentuate unwanted side effects, together with nausea, vomiting, mouth sores and fatigue.
Alameda catches herself pondering forward and imagining the worst. She stops, repeating a mantra she makes use of together with her group.
“I’ve to be 10 toes down,” she says. “I simply must be proper right here. Proper now.”
The main target is immediately, and immediately she feels glad and hopeful. The nurse connects the IV to the port implanted in her chest. The chemo drip begins.
AT NOON THE following day, Alameda is on her ft at JoAnne Graf Discipline. Each Tuesday, she spends two hours working with every of her pitchers, going over notes she has remodeled the earlier week.
Alameda says she feels good immediately. She all the time does the day after chemo as a result of she is given steroids to assist reduce the unwanted side effects. Consuming is commonly a chore: Meals has misplaced its style, and the nausea makes it laborious to eat large meals.
Later within the week, she is aware of the exhaustion will hit her. The most important difficulty proper now’s the rashes which have crept up and down her legs and arms, a facet impact of an experimental drug she is making an attempt as a part of her routine. She wears lengthy sleeves and lengthy pants to assist reduce the urge to scratch.
When it’s time for true freshman Jazzy Francik to take her flip, Alameda reminds her concerning the significance of getting endurance all through the lengthy season. They follow her drop ball first, then her screwball.
“Good!” Alameda says. “Identical to that!”
Lower than two weeks later, Francik would change into the primary true freshman to throw a no-hitter at Florida State since 2012 — on the identical weekend the Seminoles clinched the fifteenth regular-season ACC title at school historical past. In early Could, Alameda was named ACC Coach of the Yr for the seventh time and now has the Seminoles in place to make their sixth WCWS look in her 17 years as head coach.
Her gamers need nothing greater than to win for her.
“That is larger than softball,” sophomore shortstop Isa Torres mentioned. “We all know how a lot she pours into this program. So being the perfect variations of ourselves out on that area each single day is what we’re going to do for her. We do not need to do it for ourselves. It is all the time for her.”
Alameda took over the FSU program in 2009 following NFCA Corridor of Fame coach JoAnne Graf’s stint that led to 2 AIAW nationwide titles. Alameda has already constructed on that legacy — main the Seminoles to the 2018 nationwide title, 9 ACC match championships and greater than 800 wins, changing into a Corridor of Famer herself.
Not as soon as did she take into consideration stepping away after her prognosis. In her thoughts, she may follow what she all the time preaches — the significance of displaying up, even throughout robust occasions.
“While you discuss displaying up — possibly I do not really feel good immediately, however I will be right here,” Alameda says. “As an adolescent, in the event you can see folks can do this in life normally, that’s what we’re speaking about. It’s simply actually essential for me to be right here.”
Alameda factors out that is Staff No. 42 at Florida State. As is custom, gamers decide a theme for the season in August. This season, they selected to search out peace of their journey.
“Grateful 4 Every thing
Entitled 2 Nothing”
This slogan feels much more significant now.
ALAMEDA GOT AN pressing telephone name in June 2024 whereas she was on the street recruiting. Her youthful brother, Aaron, had died out of the blue of a coronary heart assault of their native California, two months shy of his 52nd birthday. She instantly flew house to spend time together with her mother and pop, as they processed their grief collectively. The duty of cleansing out his condo fell to her. In between transferring packing containers, she felt one thing tweak in her knee.
The ache intensified over the following months till she felt a pop. She underwent knee surgical procedure in early November. For eight weeks, she was not allowed to place any weight on her knee and needed to get round utilizing crutches.
On Christmas Eve, Alameda put her crutches beneath her arms, identical to she had completed for weeks. However this time, she instantly felt a burning sensation between her armpit and proper breast, as if the crutch had punctured one thing deep inside.
She touched across the space and felt a mass. Uncertain whether or not it was a welt from utilizing the crutches or a breast lump, she known as her gynecologist to get the following accessible appointment. Alameda was updated on her mammograms, and he or she by no means had any points. This time, although, she had a nasty feeling.
In early January, she went in for an ultrasound, which might detect lumps that dense breast tissue typically hides throughout routine mammograms.
“You might have a fairly large mass in there,” the technician mentioned.
All Almeda may suppose was, “My brother, in a bizarre manner, is saving me proper now.”
Alameda was despatched for extra testing whereas ready for an official prognosis. Lastly, in late February, medical doctors instructed her that she had Stage 3 triple-negative breast most cancers. Her mass was between the scale of a walnut and a tangerine, and they’d want to start chemo as quickly as doable to shrink the tumor. The excellent news, on this case, was that the most cancers had not unfold to her lymph nodes. Medical doctors reassured her that there’s a excessive success charge in treating any such most cancers, and her prognosis was good.
“The physician, she got here in and gave me a giant hug as a result of I’ve identified her for a very long time, and he or she was like, ‘You are a fighter, and loads of folks stay by means of this. You are going to be high quality.’ So I used to be like, ‘OK, I will be high quality.’ It was all very constructive. They conveyed a plan straight away, and I used to be all in,” Alameda says.
Alameda gave her medical doctors her calendar and made one factor clear: They would wish to suit her remedies in between practices and video games.
One among her first calls went to FSU ladies’s basketball coach Brooke Wyckoff, who coached in the course of the 2023-24 season after her breast most cancers prognosis and therapy plan. Alameda had an inventory of questions: When would she begin feeling sick? How sick would she really feel? How ought to she handle her group? How ought to she handle her schedule?
Wyckoff instructed her it was essential to delegate accountability to others on her workers as a result of she wouldn’t be capable of preserve the identical tempo. Alameda was identified for staying up late, sending emails at 2 or 3 a.m. She wouldn’t be capable of do this any longer. Wyckoff additionally warned that Alameda must be extra cautious about going into crowded areas since her immune system could be weaker than normal.
However greater than something, Wyckoff supported and inspired Alameda to maintain teaching.
“This job actually is your life,” Wyckoff says. “Not in a nasty manner, in all the perfect methods. It is a ardour, it is a life-style. To think about simply giving that up and saying I am not going to be part of that for a season is unthinkable. I used to be so excited concerning the season and our group, the considered simply strolling away from the women, I simply could not. Lonni mentioned the identical factor.”
ALAMEDA HAD HER first therapy March 17. The laborious half would come subsequent: telling the group. Simply earlier than their midweek recreation towards Stetson on March 26, she known as a gathering.
She thought lots about what she wished to say and wrote pages of notes. However as quickly as she bought up in entrance of the group, she burst into tears. She managed to blurt out, “I’ve breast most cancers.” Senior catcher/outfielder Katie Dack instantly hugged her. The remainder of the group adopted, enveloping their coach by means of their very own tears.
Alameda instructed the group how she deliberate to teach, reassuring them that she could be OK.
“You by no means need to see your sturdy, fearless chief get identified with one thing like that,” fifth-year senior catcher Michaela Edenfield says. “However I stored pondering, ‘Now it is our flip to be there for her.’ I simply keep in mind taking a look at her when she was completed speaking, and I mentioned, ‘Coacha, you are really one of many strongest, bravest ladies I’ve ever met in my complete complete life. Please tell us how we may also help you.'”
Two days later, their Friday evening recreation towards NC State took on even larger which means. It was their annual “Paint it Pink” recreation, an athletics division initiative throughout all ladies’s sports activities that raises cash by means of auctions and fundraising for the Tallahassee Memorial Hospital Walker Breast Program.
Alameda and Wyckoff have been concerned in fundraising for this program; they’re pictured in a photograph from August 2023 with volleyball coach Chris Poole and hospital officers. Alameda is entrance and middle, Wyckoff subsequent to her, holding a donation test for $12,672.
On the time of the {photograph}, Wyckoff had been present process preliminary testing for breast most cancers. The cash was going to purchase a machine that might pace up detection. “It simply hit me so laborious,” Wyckoff says. “This expertise they’re shopping for, that is me. I am a affected person now.” Inside 17 months, Alameda could be a affected person, too.
Alameda knew she couldn’t preserve her prognosis throughout the partitions of her program for for much longer. On March 31, she publicly introduced her prognosis and plan to proceed teaching.
The preliminary response overwhelmed her. Flower deliveries and packages flooded her workplace. Alameda goes by means of photographs in her telephone to indicate among the gadgets she acquired — fluffy blankets, a home made patch quilt and loads of inspirational messages from former gamers and connections throughout the game. Her former Oklahoma teammates even hand-delivered beaded bracelets that say “Staff Lonni.”
Howard Group Faculty in Maryland despatched her cooling gloves and socks to make use of throughout chemo to assist scale back neuropathy signs, which embrace numbness and tingling within the fingers and ft.
Each Monday, she fills the gloves and socks with ice. As her fingers and toes develop crimson from the chilly, ache units in. She tells herself, ‘Just a bit whereas longer.’
IF ALAMEDA IS identified for one factor apart from profitable, it’s her trademark lengthy braid. As soon as she started chemo, she determined to chop the braid off and donate it to Locks of Love, a company that makes hair prosthetics for financially deprived youngsters.
The hair that remained quickly began falling out in chunks, so she shaved her head. Senior infielder Krystina Hartley instructed Alameda she wished to assist, so that they determined to do it with the group at their resort after their April 9 recreation towards Saint Mary’s in California.
“I do suppose it is a part of a stage going by means of most cancers that may very well be celebrated,” Alameda says. “It does not must be like, ‘Oh, go disguise. You’ve got bought most cancers now. Can we simply make it a part of the method?'”
Assistant coach Troy Cameron provided his journey razor, however there was an issue: The blades weren’t made to shave off giant swaths of hair. The athletic trainers introduced out all their scissors to attempt to pace up the method.
“At one level, it felt like ‘Edward Scissorhands,”‘ Alameda says with amusing.
The scissors have been handed across the room. Edenfield went final and cried as she reduce.
“I am going to always remember that,” Edenfield says, tears welling in her eyes. “It is tremendous emotional to see Coacha on this state, but additionally, on the identical time, I might be proud that I used to be there for that.
“As a result of the hair coming off looks like essentially the most official piece. It is such a giant factor in femininity. However it’s the way you share these moments in life. She’s such a courageous, kindhearted, susceptible and wonderful human being, and he or she has touched so many lives. She’s touched mine.”
That goes for all the softball group. After Alameda went public together with her prognosis, the opposite ACC coaches brainstormed methods to honor her. NC State coach Lindsay Leftwich provided to design a helmet sticker. She known as Florida State assistant Travis Wilson and requested for mantras or key phrases that Alameda typically makes use of.
“Actually,” Wilson instructed Leftwich, “The toughest half to date has been having to chop her hair off.”
Then it clicked. Leftwich went onto her pc and located a pink ribbon. Then she discovered a braid and lined it up onto half of the ribbon. She ran it by means of a graphics generator and voila — a pink ribbon that includes the enduring braid.
Leftwich despatched her design to the opposite ACC coaches. As soon as they authorized, her inventive providers group polished up the graphic, then she despatched it to James Gravitz at HeadWrapz, an organization NC State makes use of for its helmet graphics and decals. Gravitz printed the decal and shipped it to each different ACC softball faculty the identical day.
“I did not need to throw only a circle together with her initials on it,” Leftwich says. “I wished it to be one thing that stood out. It is a cool technique to say we’re all standing right here doing this with you, as a lot as we will.”
The brand has made its manner onto T-shirts as nicely. Florida State’s native attire store is promoting “Staff Lonni Tees,” that includes the emblem, with all proceeds going to breast most cancers analysis at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. Alameda plans to match the cash raised.
That focus has unfold past the softball group, as coaches throughout the nation who’ve gone by means of their very own most cancers experiences have reached out to her. That features Penn State volleyball coach Katie Schumacher-Cawley, who gained the nationwide title this previous season whereas present process breast most cancers therapy.
Alameda sits in her workplace, a “Get Nicely Quickly” balloon behind her, considerably incredulous over all the eye. However she believes being public will assist not solely uplift others but additionally elevate consciousness.
“It is such a giant, tremendous cool second to do one thing larger than sport, due to sport,” she mentioned.
The one time Alameda grows emotional is when she hears that her gamers are decided to win for her. Her coronary heart breaks for them — that they’ve to look at her undergo this and that some even have household experiencing most cancers. She all the time talks about taking part in for one thing larger than themselves, however she by no means meant that to be her.
“I’m now that individual, so it’s bizarre as a result of I am right here. I am high quality,” Alameda says. “I don’t need to be that beacon, so I wrestle with that.”
Florida State and her medical doctors are fastidiously monitoring her every day, and to date she has not missed something she would have been round for final season.
Athletic director Michael Alford mentioned he teasingly instructed Alameda, “If I’ve to bench you, I’m going to bench you.” To date, although, all Alford has seen is “the identical Lonni as all the time.”
AT THE HOSPITAL each Monday, assistant coach Kaleigh Rafter delivers Alameda her morning Starbucks. Rafter settles herself on the ground subsequent to the massive chair Alameda sits in, opening her laptop computer to get a soar on scouting the pitchers the Seminoles are set to face subsequent — saving Alameda effort and time.
There shall be extra days identical to this one. When Alameda begins her second cycle of therapy, with the stronger chemo medication, these periods will final for much longer. These remedies are scheduled to finish Aug. 25. After that, Alameda will bear a double mastectomy and has opted to not bear reconstruction surgical procedure.
However all of that’s for one more day. At this second, a musician from the hospital stops in to see Alameda. Hospitals supply music remedy to most cancers sufferers to assist elevate their spirits and likewise take their minds off their ache, at the very least for a couple of minutes.
“Do you need to hear a tune?” she asks.
“Sure!” Alameda says.
“What do you need to hear?” she asks.
“What’s most requested?” Alameda asks.
“Folks like 60s and 70s folks lots, James Taylor.”
“I really like James Taylor! Let’s do James Taylor.”
The musician begins the acquainted notes on her guitar. Alameda mouths the phrases, reclining in her large chair.
I’ve seen fireplace and I’ve seen rain
I’ve seen sunny days that I believed would by no means finish
I’ve seen lonely occasions once I couldn’t discover a buddy
However I all the time thought that I would see you once more
The musician says goodbye, and Alameda displays on the previous 10 months. She has felt the ups and downs. She has maintained her smile whereas additionally staying up nights questioning how she would make it by means of. She misses her brother however is grateful for the time that they had collectively.
Every time, she comes again to a centering thought.
Ten toes down.
