McGuffey Highlanders sport shaved heads for breast cancer awareness
Photos: Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Highlanders football players cheer on athletic trainer Alex Houck as she shaves junior Memphis Hadrych’s long locks after practice last week. Many McGuffey football teammates are sporting the buzz cut in support of Houck, who is battling breast cancer.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Last week, Connor Crowe, left, and other McGuffey football players shaved their heads to support athletic trainer Alex Houck, right, who is battling breast cancer. “We know she’s going to make it through,” said the senior quarterback.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Lincoln Johnson, a junior wide receiver, grins as athletic trainer Alex Houck shaves his head after football practice last week. The Highlanders football team is sporting buzz cuts to show support for Houck, who was diagnosed with breast cancer this summer.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Highlanders athletic trainer Alex Houck pauses midway through cutting wide receiver Brennen Mullin’s hair to smile. Houck was honored to buzz-cut most of the McGuffey football seniors’ hair, a look the team is wearing to show solidarity with Houck.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Alex Houck is halfway through buzzing Tyler Wagers’ hair after football practice last week, and strands of hair dot his white McGuffey tee. Football players added a pink stripe down the center of their helmets and got buzz cuts to support Houck, the beloved athletic trainer battling breast cancer.
No, those aren’t military recruits on the McGuffey football sidelines. This month, the Highlanders football team is sporting shaved heads in support of athletic trainer Alexandra Houck, who is battling breast cancer.
“She’s the nicest person in the world. She’s not just an athletic trainer to me,” said Nate Romestan, a senior. “She’s family.”
Houck has been a fixture at McGuffey School District for 11 years, when she was contracted by NovaCare Rehabilitation to work as the district’s athletic trainer. Placement at McGuffey was a dream come true for the Baltimore native, who was introduced to the district 15 years ago, when she was a graduate assistant at California University.
“I was like, if they ever get a full-time athletic trainer, this is where I want to be. It’s amazing how much everybody cares about each other. They’re all supportive of each other. I had never seen that kind of tight-knit community, and I was like, I want to be a part of that,” Houck said.
After graduation, Houck moved into the school district and bided her time, attending Highlanders sporting events when she could.
“Four years later a job opened up and Coach (Ed) Dalton knew that I wanted to come back. He was like, we want Alex,” Houck said.
Houck has watched many of the athletes grow up, and formed relationships with them and their families. That’s why the diagnosis hit the community so hard.
“She bleeds blue and gold,” said athletic director and football head coach Ed Dalton. “The kids just rallied around her. This is schoolwide. Every team, every sport. It’s really pretty remarkable.”
Girls basketball players serve as volunteer student athletic trainers who help Houck every day. The girls soccer team had bold pink #AlexStrong shirts made in her honor, and several other teams are sporting #AlexStrong bracelets. The high school football team’s helmets bear a pink stripe down the middle.
Last Wednesday, most of the senior football players shaved their heads in solidarity with Houck, whose once-long locks are short, thanks to chemo.
Players took turns sitting for their favorite athletic trainer, who expertly buzz cut their hair after practice to cheers and applause. Teammates and moms laughed as locks blew in the wind near the football field, Houck laughing along with them.
“I look at you guys, and I’m like, I could sport that haircut when my hair grows out. I could sport that haircut. So you’re taking away my inspiration here,” Houck teased as she cut Lincoln Johnson’s hair.
After getting their haircut, players rushed to check out their new ‘dos.
“The first look in the mirror was pretty shocking,” laughed Conner Crowe, senior quarterback.
Shocking to everyone was Houck’s diagnosis. She first noticed a lump last October, but because she’d been diagnosed with fibro adenomas before, didn’t think much of it. She passed on a biopsy in December.
In June, her doctor said the lump had changed shape and recommended a biopsy. Houck agreed, and then waited for results.
While at a gas station in July, Houck took a call from her doctor’s office. When the woman on the other end of the phone asked if now was a good time to talk, Houck said yes.
“I wasn’t even thinking, she wouldn’t have asked that question if it was going to be positive news. She told me and I was just like … you’re reading me someone else’s results right now. I’m 38 years old. That’s not real,” Houck said. “You get that initial like 30-minute shock. You hear ‘cancer’ and you’re like, instant death sentence. It’s not, and I know better, but to have that knee-jerk reaction is just so impossible not to have.”
After fully digesting the news, Houck began researching treatment. She is currently receiving weekly chemo treatments – there are 12 rounds – and receives Keytruda every three weeks. Early next year, Houck will have a double mastectomy with complete reconstruction.
“Then it’s just rehab from there. Get my life back,” she said. “It’s a very positive outlook. I 100% believe that this is going to be completely taken care of.”
One of the hardest parts of learning she had breast cancer was breaking the news to her athletes and their families, Houck said.
“She was diagnosed right at the beginning of football camp and she postponed some of her appointments and things so that she could be here at camp with the boys,” said Jessica Farabee, whose son, Jaydon, is an offensive lineman. “She said she didn’t want to miss camp.”
Houck waited until she had a treatment plan before breaking the news to each team individually. When she told the football team, “it was just this huge gasp,” she remembered.
The team was stunned.
“It was pretty devastating,” said Crowe. “She’s been with us since we were young. We know she’s going to make it through.”
Though battling breast cancer, Houck exudes energy and positivity. She finds strength in her family – her father and boyfriend have been supportive, she said – in her work and in the Highlander community.
“She’s really not missed much,” Dalton said.
Taking breaks, taking time off, just isn’t in her nature; she not only serves as McGuffey’s athletic trainer, but is part owner of a local horse farm and used to spend her mornings working and riding at the stables.
“It is very disruptive because there’s so many things that I have to go to. I have to get blood work done two days before treatment, so that’s a day that I can’t do something. I have doctors appointments every three weeks,” she said. “I’m not trying to put the athletes over myself, but it is in my nature to do so. I don’t stop. Now, I have to stop and take a break and take rests and take it easy. And it’s just not in my persona to do that.”
During McGuffey’s homecoming game Oct. 6, Houck suffered peripheral nerve pain in her hands, the result of chemotherapy. She tried to work through the burning pain, but after the first quarter, was persuaded by her father to go to the emergency room.
“I actually had to leave the football game. It broke my heart,” she said.
Houck doesn’t want to miss a thing, and her presence is a testimony to the relationships she’s built with her athletes, their families and the school district. She is fighting, with a smile and rolls of turf tape, for her health, her life and Highlanders nation.
“It’s a little overwhelming at times because you’re like, oh, my God, I couldn’t even believe that this many people cared,” Houck said. “It’s not just the kids inside the school. It’s not just the parents of the athletes. It’s not just the staff, the coaches. It’s the whole community, parents of ex-athletes, grandparents, aunts, uncles, it’s everybody. This is Highlanders Nation. Coming from Baltimore, where you’re one in a million, to being one with a million behind you, is – it’s just amazing.”