Cancer claims youth

GOSNELL, 20, NEVER LOST HIS FIGHTING SPIRIT

Sunday, August 20, 2006

By Marcie Young
Charlotte Observer Staff Writer

Brett Gosnell loved football, and after a three-year battle with cancer, the Hickory native's father hopes that his son's dream of watching football on a 52-inch screen in heaven has come true.

Gosnell, 20, died Thursday morning at his parents' home in Hickory after three years fighting a rare and aggressive childhood cancer, rhabdomysarcoma. Over the years, Gosnell has inspired others with his positive attitude, intelligence and courage, his father said.

"Brett was probably the most determined person I have ever met," Mark Gosnell said Friday.

Gosnell, Hickory High School's top student in 2004, compiled a long list of accolades. Even as cancer ravaged his 6-foot-1 and 175-pound frame and chemotherapy's poisons seeped into his body, his father said that Gosnell was determined to keep his grades up and do it with a smile.

"During his treatments he improved his grades. He went from No. 2 to No. 1," Mark Gosnell said. "And that's something (the doctors) had never seen before."

Gosnell graduated as Hickory High School's valedictorian in 2004, and through chemo treatments, attended Lenoir-Rhyne and UNC Chapel Hill, his father said.

Gosnell was finally able to attend classes at the University of Virginia, his dream school, last fall, Mark Gosnell said. In his short time in Charlottesville, Gosnell impressed faculty so much, his father said, that the university's College of Arts and Sciences has created the Brett Baxley Gosnell Award for writing.

It was being named Hickory High's top student by his peers, however, that his father said meant the most to Gosnell. "That told him what everyone else thought of him," Mark Gosnell said, "And (it had nothing to do) with a high GPA."

Although Brett was a gifted student, his family and friends say that football was his true passion. Even after cancer forced him off the football team and onto the sidelines, Gosnell refused to miss a single game his senior year and convinced his doctors to change his chemo treatments based on the game schedule, his father said. His teammates responded by wearing his number, 80, on their helmets throughout the season.

"He would not give up, and that can be an inspiration to all of us," said David Elder, former coach of Hickory High's football team.

U.S. Rep. Patrick McHenry, who has attended Brett's Ride for Rhabdo, a bike ride to raise money for cancer research and named in Gosnell's honor, called Gosnell impressive.

"I recognized instantly that no matter what he did, he would have an impact larger than just himself," McHenry said.

Gosnell's longtime childhood friend, Scott Talbert, served as a pallbearer at the funeral Saturday and said that even at the roughest times, Gosnell
maintained an undeniable will to succeed.

"Even when he was so sick from chemotherapy and couldn't even walk," Talbert said, "he would say he was going to beat it."

Brett's Ride for Rhabdo
Mark Gosnell said Brett's Ride for Rhabdo is still scheduled for Oct. 1 and will continue for years to come. The ride begins at 9 a.m. at the YMCA in Hickory. Proceeds from the 10-mile, 30-mile or 65-mile ride benefit research for all kinds of childhood cancers, including rhabdo.

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