University of Massachusets Athletics
UMass Women's Lacrosse Has Inspirational New Team Member
May 01, 2007 | Women's Lacrosse
May 1, 2007
The Massachusetts women's lacrosse team played to a crowd of 273 on Sunday. On the sideline, there was one special little girl. It was eight-year-old Lexie Williams, who was diagnosed with a front left temporal lobe astrocytoma at the age of four.
The Minutewomen have adopted her at UMass in hopes to raise awareness for pediatric brain tumors. Lexie is part of the "Friends of Jaclyn" foundation inspired by Jaclyn Murphy, an 11-year-old who was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor in 2004.
Lexie from Lakeville, MA came to the game with her mother Alice to support the Minutewomen in their season finale. Lexie met the team the previous day and has developed a lasting friendship with the girls.
"I have 24 sisters now and I'm really happy about it and all of them are so nice to me," Lexie said.
After watching UMass defeat La Salle, 19-8, and star Kathleen Typadis score her record 52nd goal of the season, it inspired her to play lacrosse and gave her hope to one-day play for UMass.
 Holly Drown greets Lexie as the starting line-ups were announced.  |
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On Saturday, she was able to hang out with her big sisters at the men's lacrosse game against Syracuse. She brought the men's team luck when they defeated No. 12 Syracuse, 9-7, in front of a national audience.
"We got to go out to the boy's game and I got to sit with them for a while and it was very fun," Lexie said.
She said her favorite part of the weekend was going to the Minutewomen's game on Sunday and watching them win. Before the game Lexie was playing with the players and talking to them on the sidelines. She was extremely excited to be around team.
"I think it's just really special for her to have this opportunity to have such support for what she's been going through for such a long time," Lexie's mother Alice Williams said. "The fact that we are raising pediatric brain tumor awareness is just so great because it's something that we haven't really figured out yet medically, and so these kids are suffering a lot and we need to change that."
The facts about brain tumors are troubling. They are the leading cause of cancer deaths in children under age 20 and five years after being diagnosed of a primary malignant brain tumor, there is only a 32.7% survival rate for males and 31.6% for females, according to www.friendsofjaclyn.org.
"One of the ways to change it is to have more people aware of it," Williams said. "Jaclyn has been such an inspiration for so many of us in terms of her strength and all she's been through. She just wanted to share that so that Lexie could have the same experience."
 Lexie poses with Sam The Minuteman during warm-ups. |
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On March 23, 2007 UMass played Northwestern in the First Annual Friends of Jaclyn Murphy Foundation Benefit Game. It is in honor of Jaclyn Murphy, whose doctors found a brain tumor in March 2004. The game attracted an NCAA women's lacrosse record crowd of 3,075.
The event raised over $38,000 to help pay for treatments for other children that are diagnosed with pediatric brain caner. Today, Jaclyn is still undergoing treatment to fight the disease, but she has happily returned to her sixth grade classroom.
Making this dream possible for Lexie is Denis Murphy, Jaclyn's father. He helped make a video to get the word out about Lexie. After the video was made Lexie received a call from UMass saying that they would like to adopt her to the team. Williams is hopeful that other women's lacrosse programs will join the cause.
"I believe this is going to get big," Williams said. "I believe that NCAA teams adopting [children who are victims of] pediatric brain tumor is going to get big. Denis said he's already got two or three other schools that are interested, so I think it could get big."
Steve Games can be reached at sgames@student.umass.edu.
