Luis Leao’s Story Part II
Luis Leao was in a practically impossible position. He was a 17 year old young man who had just been told that he might have cancer. Making matters even worse, there was seemingly no way to confirm the diagnosis or begin treatment since his health insurance was only valid in his home country of Brazil, and Leao couldn’t even walk never mind get on a plane.
The next day Leao finally caught his first break. Amar Ahmad was one of the student managers of the basketball team and consequently friends with Leao and the rest of the team. Ahmad’s mother worked at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, and when she heard of Leao’s situation she offered her help.
She registered him for a special insurance program that allowed him to get treatment and further testing at the Mount Auburn Hospital. It wasn’t long before the results showed that while Leao did not have cancer, he did have a fractured pelvis that was producing bacteria and spreading it through his blood stream. Luis had to stay in the hospital for the next seven weeks and be constantly hooked up to an I.V. to both contain the bacteria and then kill it.
Meanwhile the basketball season was coming down the stretch and Winchendon was hitting their stride despite missing their leader. They received a huge boost in their last regular season home game against Bridgton Academy when they got an unexpected guest. Dressed in street clothes Leao joined his teammates on the bench, still hooked up to the I.V. He even had to go into the trainer’s room at halftime and get another injection, although he was careful not to do it until the curtains were drawn so as to not upset any of his teammates. Luis didn’t get to see the end of that game. When it was all tied up at the end of regulation and headed for overtime, he had to return to the hospital so he wouldn’t miss his next injection.
But Leao’s spirits were lifted by his brief visit with his teammates, and he made a commitment to rejoin them if they were able to advance to the NEPSAC finals the following week.
Ten days later the Winchendon team was in their locker room at Endicott College preparing for the Class A Championship game against top seeded Brewster Academy.
The team erupted when their leader once again walked into the locker room. But this time it was Leao who got the surprise as Coach Byrnes handed him his jersey and told him to get dressed.
“He looked at me and said, ‘but coach I can’t play’,” Byrnes remembered, “and then I said ‘Luis we’re going to need everybody in uniform tonight’”.
So with his I.V. still attached, Leao put his jersey on and joined his team on the bench.
While Winchendon ultimately lost a hard fought decision to Brewster Academy, having their full team on the bench was a memory they will not soon forget.
It wasn’t long after that game that Leao was finally released from the hospital and allowed to return to his dorm room at the Winchendon School. While he was able to make up all the work he missed by the spring vacation, there was no way to replace the final portion of the season.
Consequently, Leao decided to return to the Winchendon school as a post-graduate during the 2008-2009 school year, but of course there was a challenge to overcome. It wasn’t going to be free and he didn’t have the money to pay for it.
Well when you have looked life and death square in the eye, earning money to go to school doesn’t sound like such an insurmountable task. So this summer, Luis did all kinds of manual labor to earn the money to pay his own tuition. He mowed lawns, he worked on a demolition crew that knocked down a barn, and then on the construction crew that built the new barn. By the end of the summer his hard work had not only earned him the money to return to school but it had also given him a tremendous physique.
College coaches were quick to notice Leao’s improved physical strength (he was always strong but this was a whole new level) when he attended the final live session of the Eastern Invitaitonal Basketball Camp. After four impressive days on the court, he earned a spot in the NBA All-Star game.
Now schools like Harvard, Brown, Yale, Cornell, Columbia, and New Hampshire are all calling to inquire about Leao’s college plans.
The last 12 months have certainly been a roller coaster for Luis, but he has proven himself all the better for it. Not only is he on the verge of an athletic scholarship, but he is also 100% healthy, the top ranked student in his class, and potentially the third consecutive senior class president to come from the Winchendon basketball team.
Luis Leao