Hall Of Fame Coach With A Heart Of Gold
Syracuse Head Basketball Coach Jim Boeheim calls to encourage one of the team’s biggest fans, Lynn Smiddy, in her final days…
This is nothing new for a guy like Jimmy B, whose charity work is legendary in the sports world, spearheaded by his Jim and Juli Boeheim Foundation for fighting cancer & helping kids. He & his wife Juli are valuable assets in this battle to win, for people like Lynn who struggle against this terrible disease!
What an inspiring moment during a time when sports has too many negative events.
God bless your soul, Lynn !!!
(Syracuse.com) – On her death bed, Orange superfan is surprised by call from Jim Boeheim: ‘Hang in there’
Lynn M. Smiddy, 53, of Fort Covington, died Tuesday, April 11, 2017. She was a huge Syracuse University sports fan. She got a call in her last days from Jim Boeheim. She’s shown here at the Syracuse/Duke game.
Plattsburgh, N.Y. — Lynn Smiddy lay in her hospital bed April 2. Her niece, Ally, walked up to her and held out the phone.
Who is it? Lynn Smiddy asked.
The voice of Jim Boeheim, Syracuse University men’s basketball coach, came through the phone. He had called from the Final Four in Phoenix to wish her well.
A wide, bright smile grew across Lynn’s face, her niece said.
Lynn Smiddy lived for SU basketball. She never missed a game on television. And when she got to actually go to the Carrier Dome, it made her so happy she lit up the place, her niece said.
Smiddy, who lived in Fort Covington, near Plattsburgh, was diagnosed with colon cancer a year ago. The cancer quickly spread to her abdomen and organs. She’d been in and out of the hospital endless times for surgeries and chemotherapy, Ally Smiddy said. The last time they took Lynn to the hospital, in February, was the beginning of the end. There was not much left for doctors to do.
She knew it, her niece said, but Lynn Smiddy did not despair.
“You never saw her without a smile,” Ally Smiddy said. And that smile was infectious. “Anyone who knew her would say you couldn’t be around her and not have a smile on your face.”
Lynn Smiddy, 53, was born with cerebral palsy. She used a wheelchair and was dependent on her mother, Laurie, her constant companion at hundreds of games.
The only thing that rivaled Lynn Smiddy’s devotion to Orange basketball was her love of cheering for her family. When she and her brother were at Salmon River Central High School, she cheered on her brother, Gordon, when he was on the field. And she was a cheerleader for many of the teams, despite her wheelchair.
As an adult, Lynn Smiddy was always there, cheering on her niece and nephew when they played.
Ally Smiddy said her aunt never missed one of her games, and there were hundreds: Ally Smiddy played soccer, hockey and softball in high school and college.
Aunt Lynn traveled the state, went to the national college softball championships in Virginia and spring training in Florida.
As it became clear that Ally Smiddy’s biggest cheerleader was not going to get better, she tried to think of something that would make her smile big, one last time.
On April 1, Ally Smiddy dashed off an email to the Jim and Juli Boeheim Foundation.
Her aunt, she wrote, was a huge fan of Syracuse basketball. “Unfortunately, she is nearing the end of her battle with cancer. I am wondering if the foundation would be willing to send her a message or give her a call to send some positivity her way. It would mean the world to her,” Ally Smiddy wrote.
She included her cell phone number and pressed send. She expected nothing in return. The Boeheims are busy people.
Less than 24 hours later, her cell phone rang. But she was in the hospital and had her phone on silent, so she missed the call.
She listened to the voicemail: “This is Jim Boeheim calling to talk to you about your aunt.”
He said he was in Phoenix, at the Final Four. He told Smiddy to call him back on the same phone number, which was his wife, Juli’s, cell. “You can call us back and we’ll talk to you soon,” Boeheim said.
Ally Smiddy was a bit stunned. Less than 24 hours after she asked, her aunt’s icon, and one of hers, was calling back. She dialed Juli Boeheim’s cell phone while standing outside her aunt’s hospital room. Ally Smiddy wanted to surprise her aunt.
Once Jim Boeheim was on the phone, she put it on speaker and held it to her aunt’s ear. Who is it? Lynn Smiddy asked.
Her niece told her to ask herself. She did, and Jim Boheim’s voice came through the speaker. Lynn Smiddy hadn’t been too animated recently. But that voice lit up her face with the same smile that her niece would search the stands for at every game.
The coach and the superfan were two Upstate New Yorkers. What else would they talk about? The weather and basketball.
It was 80 in Phoenix, Boeheim says. Lynn Smiddy tells him it’s just 40 in Plattsburgh. It’s going to be 40 for a long time, he grumbles. They commiserate about the seemingly endless winter.
She wants to know who he thinks will win the NCAA tournament. “I hope Roy wins,” Smiddy says, referring to Roy Williams, the coach of North Carolina. Boeheim tells her he is rooting for Gonzaga, but thinks North Carolina will win. (It did).
“You keep watching,” Boeheim tells Smiddy as she smiles from her hospital pillow. “Juli and I are out here thinking of you. So hang in there.”
They talk a little more basketball, then say goodbye.
Lynn Smiddy died nine days later. The hours after that phone call were some of the happiest, her niece said.
Boeheim, in an interview today, said he and his wife try to be as responsive as they can when they’re contacted on behalf of someone who is ill.
“It’s a small thing to do,” he said. “We are happy to do it.”
Cancer, he said, touches everyone. Boeheim is a cancer survivor and works with his wife through the Jim and Juli Boeheim Foundation to raise money for cancer treatment, research and prevention.
For her funeral Saturday, Lynn Smiddy asked that everyone wear orange.
“We are turning the church orange,” Ally Smiddy said. “I think she is the only person who could do that.”
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