Timmy Ward talks Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Awareness Week
For many Rutgers Football players, the beginning of spring brings the joy of playing football again after a long winter offseason.
However for current Scarlet Knight Timmy Ward, this first week of April means a lot more to him, as it’s also Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Awareness Week.
“Obviously, a lot of people know where I come from and my story,” Ward told TKR. “So this week obviously means a lot. I love helping anybody who’s willing to reach out or who needs help.”
Ward, a former all-state athlete out of Canton High School in Pennsylvania, where he had several notable performances before his football days came to a halt.
The two way high school football player was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in 2019, taking away his ability to play the game he loved.
“Behind [after] my family and wanting to get healthy for them, the main thing [motivation] was wanting to keep playing football,” said Ward. “I played other sports, but football was the thing that I have always loved.”
Now after being diagnosed, this did not deter Ward from pursuing his passion as he would find other ways to study the game that he loved
“From the moment I got sick and when I was in the hospital, I was watching my high school film, reaching out to coaches, just letting them know that I’m going to be healthy soon and I’ll be ready,” Ward said. “Football was a big thing for me and it helped just having something else to think about. Now whether it got to a point where I was going to play football again, I didn’t know, but I do know that I was going to do whatever I could to get there.”
Through the help of his medical team, Ward was able to make a full recovery, not just from cancer, but also he worked his way back to the football field as well. He was granted another year of eligibility in 2020 and made 13 tackles as a high school senior before tearing his ACL, cutting another season short.
Because of this injury, Ward was unable to attract any college interest following his graduation from high school. However he enrolled at Rutgers and immediately sought out a role somewhere in the football program, becoming a student manager for the team as a freshman in 2021.
After that Ward felt as though he was healthy enough to give it a shot as a walk-on and earned his way onto the team. However he didn’t just earn a spot on the team, he would go on to appear in 21 games since 2022, primarily a member of the special teams unit.
In those games, Ward has been able to return not just one, but two blocked punts for touchdowns including what would turn out to be the game-winning touchdown in the 31-24 Pinstripe Bowl victory over Miami this past December.
Despite the intense work that Ward put in on the field, he has remained a resource to those struggling from illnesses just as he did and hopes to help others find a way to fight back against the disease
“I love helping anybody I can,” said Ward. “Obviously, I have a busy schedule, but I’ll find a way to make it work.”
This week has allowed Ward to assume a larger platform, which he has used to offer both support and advice not only to the patients, but to the families of those affected, acknowledging that the week means a lot to the families as well.
“Instantly, my mom, obviously, started panicking when I got the news,” he said. “My sister didn’t know what to do, she was pretty young at the time.”
When asked about what his message is to the patients and their families, Ward said the following….
“Be positive. You’re going to be in shock when you get diagnosed or whatever the situation is, but at the end of the day, you have to decide whether you want to stand up and fight it or just let it [the illness] take its course”, adding “you have to wake up every day and be ready to handle whatever the task is, whether it’s treatment or rest, or even trying to get some food in your stomach - just trying to decide every day that you’re going to get through it and you’re going to be positive about it.”
For more on Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Awareness, you can click here or if you’d like to donate to the fight against Cancer check out the link here.
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