Senior pitcher Justice French is having his best season at Mercer. Oddly enough, it comes after the scariest, most trying year of his life.
French and the Bears will take on Georgia in Athens on Wednesday. A weekend pitcher, he will be watching thankfully from the dugout. Overcoming cancer, years after one of his best friends died from the same form of the disease, has given him and his parents a new perspective.
“I don’t think I’ve ever known fear before the way I know fear now,” his mom, Elaine French-Rago, said.
Likewise, the family has never known as much joy. And it all started with a hair salon and one of nature’s nastiest insects.
French has worn his hair short, grass-on-a-green short, since he was a sophomore at Collins Hill High School.
Last year, as the Bears prepared to compete in the NCAA Regional at Georgia Tech, French went to get a haircut. As the stylist ran the razor over the top of his head, she nicked a raise mole. It started bleeding. French didn’t think anything of it.
A few days later, after the Bears were eliminated from the regional, French left for a summer baseball league in Minnesota. When he arrived, the host family’s house had ticks crawling throughout. The bugs were in his bed. The bugs were in his car.
Miserable, he left after two weeks.
Back at home, he and his mom were watching a funny movie. Every time French would laugh, he would lean forward. The last time, Elaine saw something that wasn’t funny: a big, black blob on the top of his white scalp. She thought it was a blood-sucking tick. She flipped on the lights and went to find some tweezers. When she returned and got a closer look it was clear her son didn’t have a tick.
It was something else.
“It didn’t look too pretty,” he said. “It didn’t hurt. It was a huge shock to me.”
Unfortunately, the Frenches knew what it likely was.
French and Jarrett Boston grew up playing basketball and baseball together. Boston was an unbelievable athlete: quarterback, point guard, left fielder, straight-A student.
Boston was diagnosed with a malignant melanoma in 2002. He was 13 years old.
Though he was declared cancer-free after surgery, it returned. On Feb. 22, 2006, cancer won the battle. Boston was a junior in high school.
The odds are staggering that two high school teammates could be diagnosed with the same type of cancer. According to the American Cancer Society, melanoma accounts for less than 5 percent of skin-cancer cases, but causes a large majority of skin-cancer deaths.
French’s family, though fair-skinned, doesn’t have a history of cancer. Three days after an emergency biopsy, French learned that he, too, had a malignant melanoma.
Because of what happened to Boston, French began receiving two full body scans each year while he was in high school. That continued when he went to Mercer. His last scan was in December. He received a clean bill of health. Six months later he had an aggressive life-taking disease.
But French remembered the courage that Boston displayed until the very end. Could he be as strong? He allowed himself to lose control for about 20 minutes. He went to his room and took a shower. He prayed. He decided he wasn’t going to let his mom, dad or Jarrett down.
“I had no choice,” he said. “I was going to have a good mindset.”
Boston’s mom and dad reached out to him, as did his teammates and coach at Mercer, Craig Gibson.
Doctors at Emory, the same hospital where Bell received treatment, performed operations in July to remove the cancer. The doctors removed French’s lymph nodes as well. The surgeries required a six-inch incision from the top of his head to the back of his neck. They also removed nodes on the side and back of his neck.
Curiously, he later refused to look in a mirror. His mom said she tried to get him to look, just so he could see how gnarly the scars were.
He refused. He was only going to look forward.
“He never turned back,” she said. “He said, ‘This I what I’ve been given, I’m going to always look forward.’ Witnessing him going through that ... he’s my hero.”
French slowly got his endurance and strength back and began working out with the team in September.
He said throughout the ordeal, he didn’t want to burden others with his issues.
“Just from Jarrett’s situation, I knew that it could kill you,” he said. “I never felt at any point that I was going to die. I talked to my doctor and my family but beside that I was just trying to face it head on. I’m good now. “
Eventually, he was pronounced cancer-free.
The coaches have noticed small changes in French, aside from the fact that he started to grow his hair out to cover up the scars. Always a good teammate and player, French began working even harder.
The results have been good. His win-loss record of 3-2 isn’t the best because of several no-decisions, but Gibson said French is throwing better than he ever has. Gibson said he wants French to continue to get the ground-ball outs he survives on if the Bears hope to win the Atlantic Sun tournament for the second consecutive year.
“We need him to do what he’s done all year,” Gibson said. “He’s given us a great chance all year. He’s one of the best teammates I’ve ever coached. If he [pitches as he has], then we’ll continue to play.”
Through it all, French continues to impress the people who have watched him handle his adversity.
“I think he’s destined for something special,” said Daniel French, his father. “I don’t know what. He’s a special kid.”
