University of Maine men’s ice hockey Head Coach Shawn Walsh lost his battle with cancer last Monday at Eastern Maine Medical Center, passing away at age 46.
It was a battle that began in June 2000 when Walsh was first diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma, the most common form of kidney cancer. There are 18,000 new cases of this cancer every year, striking three out of 10,000 people.
With his diagnosis, Walsh, who began his head-coaching career at UMaine in 1984 and had won 399 games since then, began preparing for the fight of his life. Despite being very ill, he remained optimistic, according to those who knew him.
“Perhaps [most] remarkable was how positive he approached everything in his life, including his illness,” UMaine Athletics Director Suzanne Tyler said Monday. “Despite his great odds, his pain and the distress his treatments caused, he maintained a sense of humor and an amazing drive to regain his health.”
Walsh faced his first surgery on July 7, 2000 at Boston Medical Center, to remove his cancerous left kidney.
Afterward, he underwent immunotherapy cycles at University of California’s Jonsson Cancer Center in August and October, returning to the UMaine campus to direct team practices between treatments.
He returned to his regular coaching duties at the team’s first indoor practice last season on Sept. 24, 2000. After the practice he briefly spoke about his cancer, but he did not let it define him. He chose instead to focus on his team and its upcoming season.
Walsh had a second round of immunotherapy treatments in October, but was able to return to the UMaine bench later in the month.
Walsh then underwent surgery on March 29, 2001 at the National Institute of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Md., to prepare for a stem cell transplant. The de-bulking procedure included removal of his left lung and of cancerous tumors located under his breastplate. The stem cell treatments are used to transplant immature cells from a healthy donor to a cancer patient so the stem cells can develop into new blood cells. A successful transplant means that the new cells will grow, multiply and attack the cancer cells. Walsh’s brother, Kevin, was his stem cell donor.
Walsh began chemotherapy on May 10 to suppress his immune system in preparation for the transplant scheduled for May 17. The usual hospital stay after a stem cell transplant is 21 days, but by May 22, five days after the transplant, Walsh was able to leave the hospital. He spent much of the next two months at his brother’s house in Annandale, Va., returning each morning to NIH.
Walsh was released from NIH July 13, 57 days after his transplant, a hospital record.
“[NIH] had never released anybody before day 60 of this treatment,” Walsh said after returning to Maine. “I said to my doctor last week, `Records are made to be broken.’ He turned to the head nurse and said, `records are made to be broken, let’s get the coach home.'”
More recently, Walsh returned to NIH in August for treatment of a virus common to stem cell transplant recipients. Two weeks later he was back at the university.
“I talked to Coach Walsh a lot over the summer,” said junior defenseman Peter Metcalf. “When I found out yesterday, I was in shock. It was kind of like he had the whole Maine hockey family fooled.”
As recently as three weeks ago, Walsh appeared to be in good spirits and health. Stuart Haskell, the former UMaine athletics director who hired Walsh in 1984, stopped by Walsh’s office to check up on him.
“I hadn’t seen him in awhile and he came out and greeted me,” Haskell said of the visit. “He looked thin of course, but he had a firm handshake and his demeanor was similar to during his career.”
After that meeting, Haskell was confident the man he brought to UMaine 18 years ago was going to beat his latest opponent.
“I believed strongly he would win this battle,” Haskell said. “I went home and told my wife that I know he’s going to make it.”
Shortly after that meeting, on Monday, Sept. 10, Walsh was admitted to the intensive care unit of EMMC. He was apparently suffering from respiratory problems related to pneumonia, which he may have contracted because of the immunosuppressant drugs he took to help his body accept the new stem cells. Such medication would have made him more susceptible to infection.
The Black Bears will carry on this season without the coach who made his mark on college hockey and put the University of Maine on the map.
“Coach Walsh was so much more than just a coach to us,” the team said in a statement issued last Monday night. “He is a father figure to 33 guys on this team. He will be greatly missed by all of us.”