Vim & Vigor - Fall 2019 - UVA - 50

or reasons no one can
explain, Debbie Ryan
is two decades out
from facing pancreatic
cancer-an almost certain death sentence back
in 2000 and today. Not even treatment for
such a formidable opponent derailed her
34-year career as head coach of the UVA
women's basketball team. Since retiring
from UVA Athletics, Ryan hasn't slowed
down one bit, either: Using the recruiting skills she honed as a Division 1 coach,
she's calling on members of the community to join her newest pursuit-fighting
cancer and diabetes and bringing toplevel orthopedic care to Charlottesville.
A native of Titusville, New Jersey,
Ryan brought her fighting spirit to
University of Virginia in 1975 to attend
graduate school in education and serve
as assistant coach for the fledgling
women's basketball program. Upon
graduating in 1977, Ryan was named
head coach. "Back then, we basically
didn't really have any money. We didn't
have a locker room. We had urinals in
the bathrooms. We got hand-me-down
uniforms and equipment. ... I had to
fight through a lot of things early on
in my career to get what we needed,"
Ryan shares.
With more than 700 wins over her
career, Ryan stands among an elite
group of coaches. "I really loved the
GIVE

Join Coach
Ryan's Team

FA L L 2 0 1 9

From Courts to
CANCER CENTER

Basketball will always be Ryan's first
love, but a life-disrupting diagnosis
would take her passions to advocating for patients and healthcare philanthropy. A point guard in high school
and college who had only an ankle
injury once, Ryan was always in top
physical shape. But in November 1999,
she noticed a stomachache that she
attributed to an ulcer and the stress
of coaching at the elite level. Because
symptoms of pancreatic cancer are
so vague and it is a difficult cancer to
detect, Ryan wouldn't learn what she
had to face until August 2000. Around
the same time, another high-profile
member of the Charlottesville community-Emily Couric, then a Virginia
state senator embarking on a campaign
for governor-also learned she had
pancreatic cancer.
"We were diagnosed about three
weeks apart," Ryan says. "Emily was
just so dynamic, and she really wanted
to change the face of cancer care, not
just here in Charlottesville but for the
Commonwealth that she served. ... We'd
hang out in the old cancer center. We
were jammed in small rooms in the old
hospital. We designed our own cancer
center in our minds, and we sent all of
our notes to Leonard Sandridge (then

UVA executive vice president and chief
operating officer). We wrote about light,
colors, gardens, what we needed right
then and what we wanted in the future.
Emily wanted a five-star hotel next
door, and I wanted a whole floor to be
an exercise facility. We wanted it to be a
place to heal that was full of hope."
Couric would not live to see the 2011
opening of the Emily Couric Clinical
Cancer Center, which reflects not only
her name but also much of her vision.
"Emily defied the odds. She was able to
live with a fairly good quality of life for
18 months, which was unheard of back
then," Ryan says. "That was largely due
to the skill of Michael Williams, MD
(chief of the Division of Hematology/
Oncology at UVA Cancer Center). He
was known worldwide for his innovative
treatments even back then."
Dr. Williams would also oversee
Ryan's care for the nine years after she
had surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy that, somehow, has left
her free of cancer. "On Aug. 14, 2000,
Rayford Scott Jones, MD, removed the
tumor in my pancreatic duct. He was a
very skilled surgeon. I then had some
chemotherapy and radiation therapy.
But that's not the answer. It was just
pure luck ... something fought it.
Dr. Jones (now retired from surgery)
and I have become very good friends.
He often says, 'I have no idea why
you're still here, but I'm sure glad it
worked out.'"

Recruiting
CANCER FIGHTERS

Since retiring from UVA Athletics in
2011, Ryan has thrown her focus into
healthcare philanthropy, bringing the
same passion she brought to the court.
"In basketball recruiting, it's all about
relationships, and it's the same thing
here. The better you connect with people, the more likely they are to join in
your cause."
Her enthusiasm for her newest role
(principal gifts officer for UVA Health

PHOTOS BY UVA ATHLETICS

Learn how "the best and the
brightest" minds at UVA Health
System are searching for ways
to make pancreatic cancer a
curable disease. Go to giving.
uvahealth.com/article/takingaim-pancreatic-cancer. Or call
Coach Ryan at 434-982-3803.

athletic life, and I learned so much from
my fellow coaches and administrators,"
Ryan says. "Obviously, the Final Four
years (1990-92) were great years. But
some of the best years were the building of the program. The early years and
watching players graduate and go on
to do great things themselves (including serving as president of the WNBA).
That really is the crux of why you do
this. It's not the wins and losses. Those
things are all great in the moment. But
what your players do behind basketball,
and knowing that you're an important
part of somebody's life for the rest of
their life, is really far more satisfying."

https://giving.uvahealth.com/article/taking-aim-pancreatic-cancer https://giving.uvahealth.com/article/taking-aim-pancreatic-cancer https://giving.uvahealth.com/article/taking-aim-pancreatic-cancer

Vim & Vigor - Fall 2019 - UVA

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