Two months ago, Roseanna Smith received the news that every woman dreads — she had breast cancer.
For Smith, Oberlin football’s chief of staff, special teams coordinator, and running backs coach, it was not the first time that cancer had directly impacted her life. Just six months prior to her own diagnosis, her father was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, an incurable cancer, after falling and breaking his femur. While the fall and diagnosis were the start of the most difficult six months of Smith’s life, she entered her own battle against cancer with the knowledge that she had an army of support behind her and her father.
“You find out immediately if you’re with the right people when everything goes sideways and I can say unequivocally, I am in the right place,” Smith wrote in an email to the Review. “Love is action, and the coaching staff, our team and their families, alumni, Athletics department, and so many others have showed up for me in so many ways these last six months.”
Smith singled out both Head Coach John Pont and Ben Hammer, who is the associate head coach, defensive coordinator, and defensive line coach, as two of her biggest supporters during this time.
Pont said the ways he has made sure to extend support to Smith are through time and presence, which have taken on a few different forms.
“I went with her to two appointments to University Hospital, to their cancer center there,” Pont said. “Other coaches went with her to other appointments. We’ve driven her places, spent time with her, gone to her house to spend time, sit with her, FaceTime with her. Her desire is for everything to be as normal as it can be, [so we’re] doing everything we can to keep life, life, right?”
Smith told the team about her cancer a few days after she was diagnosed. Sharing such a difficult piece of news with them was, in her words, “both incredibly difficult and also perfectly natural.”
“I always want to be a person who is trustworthy enough to show up for someone’s hardest days, and I wanted them to know about mine ahead,” Smith wrote. “I shared the battle plan: Part 1 is 18 weeks of chemo/treatment and Part 2 will be surgery this summer.”
Upon hearing the news, team leaders and their coaches began brainstorming meaningful ways they could demonstrate to Smith just how much they had her back.
“We were sitting in the coaches’ office after a little bit and talking to the coaches for a good amount of time,” third-year Hunter Green said. “[The idea] just came up naturally, and we were like, ‘Yeah let’s do it, let’s all shave our heads.’”
Smith had already been planning to shave her head and was grateful to her players who decided to join her, as they turned the occasion from depressing to heartening.
“The guys who decided to shave their heads with me created a memory I’ll forever cherish,” Smith wrote. “I can’t say being bald is my favorite hairstyle, but I got to do it alongside some of my favorite people. Any sadness I could have felt was replaced by laughter, and an incredible feeling of strength at the start of this journey. I will only ever think of this day with complete joy, and that’s truly a gift.”
Per the NCAA database, Smith is one of 44 female coaches in NCAA football, and one of only 11 female coaches in Division III. According to the National Cancer Institute, odds are that Smith is one of nearly six active female coaches in NCAA football who will be diagnosed with breast cancer at some point in their lives.
While Smith is currently focused on overcoming her own battle, she said that she has already begun mapping out ways for her and her community to help out others in similar circumstances.
“I am still working on the details but one of my priorities is to find a way to make this journey meaningful beyond my own battle,” Smith wrote. “I recognize the support I’ve received has made this process so much easier and I want to find a way for us to help others.”
Green expressed that Smith’s tendency to look ahead for ways that she can help others is standard for her.
“I don’t know many people as kindhearted and as generous as Coach Ro,” Green said. “When it comes to all of our extracurriculars, when it comes to giving back to the community, she sets up almost everything. She has the biggest heart and it’s just so unfortunate that somebody like that has to deal with this terrible diagnosis.”
