Nicole Hester Overcomes Challenges

Nicole Hester, a senior at Drexel University and standout on the women’s basketball team, has been named the 2009 recipient of the 21st annual Honda Inspiration Award.   This award is given each year to a female college athlete who has overcome adversity to excel in her sport.

Nicole Hester, a native of Waldorf, MD, was the third leading scorer for the Drexel Dragons in her sophomore year. The 5’ 10” forward led her team in blocks and steals and was named the team’s Defensive MVP. Right before opening day of her junior season, however, she received devastating news – a positive diagnosis of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Because of the necessary chemotherapy and radiation treatments, Nicole was forced to withdraw from classes and basketball for her entire junior year.

“The diagnosis brought up a lot of mixed feelings,” says Nicole. “At first I didn’t know too much about Hodgkin’s, so even though my doctor told me not to research it online of course I went right to the Internet. I found out that it was much more serious than I had thought. Still, I never had a doubt in my mind that I’d be able to beat it.”

Nicole credits the mental toughness she learned during basketball and the many hours she spent running   on the track in pre-season conditioning drills for helping build the stamina she needed to endure months of painful treatments.   Even while battling cancer, she stayed in close touch with her team, calling before games and rallying the troops at pre-game meals whenever she could.   And while she was forced to sit out the entire season, her teammates always kept Nicole in their memory. They even took to the court wearing wristbands imprinted with her jersey # 24 and the words “One Love” – from a favorite U2 song Nicole and her teammates would often sing in the locker room before games. Nicole admits she teared up when she first saw her team wearing the bands.“Besides my immediate family, my mom and dad, my teammates were really my backbone through the whole ordeal,” she says. “I had visits not only from many members of my team, but from my coaches and my academic advisor. It definitely helped give me the strength I needed to fight.”

As soon as her health and treatment schedule allowed, Nicole began attending team games. When she was finally declared cancer-free in the fall of 2007 she almost immediately rejoined her teammates on the court for an exhibition trip to Spain in September. But while the chemo and radiation treatments had helped Nicole rid her body of cancer and saved her life, they’d also diminished her lung capacity, which made it impossible for her to play at her usual level of intensity during the three exhibition games in Spain. Nicole recalls playing about 10 minutes per game, “It was a struggle, but I was really happy to be out there,” she says.

Beginning her junior season, Nicole took it one day at a time. To build up her lung capacity, she added swimming, biking and running to her basketball practice schedule. As the season progressed so did Nicole’s determination, will power – and her wind.   She went on to play some of the best basketball of her career during the season’s final two months, helping her team to a 10-game winning streak and its best record in conference play to that point, finishing the season 18-12.   She led the team in assists with 82 and finished as the team’s most accurate three-point shooter while making a career-best 31 three-pointers in the season.

By the time her senior year came around, Nicole had restored her full capabilities through hard work and commitment. She didn’t miss a single game all season. After a difficult start, with a losing record in non-conference play, Nicole and her teammates rallied in time for conference play. Inspired and led by Nicole, the Dragons won a school-record 24 games, including a 16-2 mark in conference play on the way to the regular-season championship. In the CAA Tournament, the top-seeded Dragons dethroned 17-time defending champion Old Dominion in the semifinals to snap the Lady Monarchs’ 51-game conference tournament winning streak.   Drexel then went on to defeat James Madison, on the Dukes’ home court in Harrisonburg, Va., to claim its first ever CAA Championship. The team won more games than any women’s basketball team in Drexel history and represented the program for the first time in the NCAA Tournament.

Nicole says she’s very proud to be a Honda Inspiration Award winner, and is thrilled to be recognized by a program that has honored some of her basketball heroes in the past, like Candace Parker, 2008 Honda-Broderick Cup winner as the Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year, and Renee Montgomery, this year’s winner for the Honda Sports Award in basketball.

“I feel so honored to be chosen from a group of people who have all overcome great challenges in their lives.  While I never really thought of myself as being an inspiration to others, I know that I wouldn’t want anyone else to have to go through what I did and I know that I couldn’t have done it without the support of my friends and family. So if my story helps other people get through their own struggles or makes them keep on fighting, then I’m happy to be an inspiration for them.

Like all Inspiration Award winners, Nicole was chosen not only for her athletic achievements, but also for her strength of character and for the outstanding example she sets for young women everywhere.   She will graduate with a major in Sports Management, and she’s looking forward to a career in coaching and someday perhaps as an athletic director.

The experience of overcoming Hodgkins Lymphoma and going on to succeed in basketball has changed her mentally, says Nicole. “I don’t sweat the small stuff anymore, and it feels great.”