By Neil Geoghegan
ngeoghegan@21st-centurymedia.com
@NeilMGeoghegan on Twitter
LONDON GROVE >> The call came in the middle of a seemingly normal Tuesday night. And it was the type that everybody dreads.
Avon Grove football coach Joe Coffey already happened to be up in the early morning hours of Oct. 18, 2022 tending to his infant son Mason when his cell phone rang. Junior receiver Gavin Picard was on the line, and he had some shocking news.
At the age of 17, and in the middle of the high school football season, Gavin had just been diagnosed with cancer.
“The first person I called after being diagnosed, other than my dad, was coach Coffey,” Picard recalled. “It was about two in the morning, and he picked up right away.
“He talked to me a lot longer than anybody should talk to somebody at that time of the morning — that was awesome.”
Less than 36 hours after having played in a Ches-Mont football clash against Downingtown East, Picard’s world changed with stunning speed. And it was a complete shock. The diagnosis: Stage 3 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
“Gavin didn’t get injured,” Coffey said. “He went through something that nobody can control.”
‘ALL LAST SEASON I HAD CANCER THROUGHOUT MY BODY’
It all happened just about a year ago, but Picard remembers it all in vivid detail. After falling to the Cougars 34-9, the Red Devils had the weekend off.
“And then I practiced Monday and I felt fine,” Picard recalled.
“But I woke up the next morning not feeling great, and I had this lump on my neck. I went to the doctor later that day, and she found other large lymph nodes on my neck, in my armpits and on my side.”
It was a bit of luck that Gavin’s mom, Beth, worked as a nurse at Nemours Children’s Hospital. And in an ironic twist, Coffey’s wife, Michele, is also a nurse at Wilmington hospital. So there was no question of where to go.
His doctor, Stephanie Guarino, immediately send him to get scanned. But before she did, she had this warning: “The doctor said there is a high probability that it is cancer,” Picard said. “When we told my dad (Todd), he thought we were joking, because I didn’t have any symptoms.
“Which is crazy because I had stage three cancer.”
The scan revealed, among other troubling potential issues, a 10-centimeter mass in Gavin’s chest that was actually pushing up against his trachea. He wound up starting the first eight games of the 2022 season at wide receiver, but that suddenly wasn’t the main focus anymore.
“He was a key contributor to the team. And it’s not like he got cancer one night – he had it the whole season,” Coffey said with a shake of his head.
“All last season I had cancer throughout my body,” Picard echoed. “It blows my mind to think about it.
“We’ve all seen first-hand that you can go from practicing one day to not being able to play football anymore the next.”
‘IT GETS WORSE AS IT GOES’
While the Picard family began pondering treatment options, Coffey gathered the football team together to break the news to his teammates. Earlier that morning on the phone he had promised Gavin that the entire Avon Grove community would be there for support.
“I just remember telling myself that I had to speak with the team with conviction, to tell them Gavin is going to be OK,” he said. “That he is going to battle and he will find a way to get through it.”
In late October Picard underwent six months of Chemotherapy — a grueling drug treatment that used powerful chemicals to kill all fast growing cells. He received a high dose every other week.
At the start, it wasn’t as debilitating as feared, and Gavin made it in person to the Red Devils’ final two games of the season. It certainly helped that he was 17 years old and otherwise healthy.
“It’s hard to understand what it is like until you go through it,” he said. “It gets worse as it goes on. When I had my first round, I got car sick but other than that I felt pretty good.
“But as it starts to build up in your body, you are nauseous all the time. Any movement made me sick. And you become really tired. You’re bones ache. It’s not fun.”
There were many days during the winter months where Gavin did not have the strength to attend school, so he completed his schoolwork online, and somehow managed to maintain his grades. Every once in a while Coffey would send Gavin video clips of some of his receptions from the ’22 campaign.
“I wanted him to reflect on the fact that his body was attacking itself and he was still performing at that level,” Coffey explained. “Of course he obviously did not know what was going on at the time.”
It was a difficult stretch for the Picard family, who live in New London Township. But the overwhelming support from the community undoubtedly helped.
“And it wasn’t just the football team, or Avon Grove, but the entire community,” Picard said. “People were bringing meals every other day to our house for like two months.
“Sometimes it was people we didn’t even know. It was really awesome.”
It also helped that Gavin, right from the start, was striving for an ambitious goal: he wanted to make it back and be healthy enough to play football for Avon Grove as a senior.
“My number one goal was to get to playing football,” he said. “The night I was diagnosed, I asked the doctor if the treatment could wait until after I finished my season because we had two more games left.”
‘IT’S WHERE IT STARTED AND WHERE IT FINISHED’
The Chemotherapy regimen ended late in March, and to the surprise of everyone Gavin did not lose weight. In fact, he actually gained about 10 pounds throughout the ordeal. It was highly unusual, but Gavin never did lose his appetite. He, however, couldn’t do anything strenuous, and certainly was unable to work out.
“When I finished with Chemotherapy, it was like I didn’t work out for a whole year and just ate chips and sat on the sofa,” he recalled. “I had to fully reestablish all of my stamina, my endurance and my strength.”
Even though he was in no shape to participate during spring football practice Gavin attended most of the practices. He was determined to regain his strength and be ready to fully participate in preseason workouts in the summer.
Throughout the spring Gavin kept gaining what Coffey termed ‘good weight,’ and began astounding his coaches and teammates with such rapid progress. On June 7th the good news arrived in an unlikely setting.
“At the end of practice, we were in a huddle and my doctor called coach Coffey’s cell. My parents had arranged it,” Picard explained.
“Doctor Guarino asked to talk to me and she gave me the news.”
Gavin’s most recent scan revealed that he was cancer-free.
“And to be with my team – who had supported me through it all – meant a lot to me,” he added. “It’s where it started and where it finished. It was a great moment.”
A couple weeks later Gavin realized a life-long dream thanks to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, a non-profit that has helped fulfill the wishes of kids with a critical illness since 1980.
Along with his parents he flew from Philadelphia to Bozeman, Mt., to go fly-fishing and visit several of the state’s iconic National Parks. They visited Montana State University while in Bozeman and later made a six-hour trek north to Glacier National Park.
“It was really beautiful up there,” he said.
‘IT’S (BEEN A) CRAZY ROLLER COASTER’
According to Coffey the coaching staff kind of eased Gavin back leading up to preseason camp, but when it opened last August he was ready to go. That doesn’t, however, mean it was easy.
“At the beginning of summer camp it was a little rough,” Picard acknowledged. “It’s going to be when you are out for six months and you are getting poisons put into your body. I was able to train with physical therapy at the hospital and at school to where I was in shape enough, and ready to go.”
Now 6-foot-4, 212 pounds, the decision was made to move Gavin to tight end where he could still catch passes, but also help more in run blocking. He wound up realizing his goal and was a starter in the season opener, a 17-12 victory at Oxford. He also contributed on special teams.
Especially in the opener, where the temperature was in the high 90s, the Avon Grove staff closely monitored Gavin to make sure he isn’t overdoing it.
“We are constantly checking on him,” Coffey said, “but he is fine. He’ll tell us if he’s tapped out. He won’t sacrifice being in there just to prove a point.”
Through nine games the Devils are 4-5 and Gavin has four receptions for 33 yards. On Sept. 1 he appeared to grab a touchdown pass against Penn Wood (in a 42-21 victory), but a late penalty flag wiped it out.
“It felt good in the moment, and it still feels good. I still count it,” Picard quipped.
“We got it to him in the end zone. They signaled touchdown and a lot of us had tears in our eyes,” Coffey added. “And then the flag came in.”
With a year’s worth of perspective, nobody associated with Avon Grove football are the same as they were before Gavin’s saga. Coffey said that it was a lesson for all to avoid taking things for granted.
“I learned that the least important thing we teach is football, and we really learned that last year,” Coffey said.
For Gavin, he will close out his senior football season Friday against Coatesville, and then will turn his attention to finding a place to attend college. But the last 12 months have provided him with valuable lessons moving forward as a Cancer survivor.
“It’s truly amazing what can happen in the span of a year,” he said. “A year ago I was diagnosed with a horrible disease. And today I am back to my normal life.
“It’s crazy the roller coaster a year can put you through.”
