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Lauren hill mount st joseph basketball
Lauren Hill, left foreground, slaps hands with teammates as she practices with her NCAA college basketball team at Mount St Joseph in Cincinnati in October. Photograph: Tom Uhlman/AP
Lauren Hill, left foreground, slaps hands with teammates as she practices with her NCAA college basketball team at Mount St Joseph in Cincinnati in October. Photograph: Tom Uhlman/AP

College basketball player who competed despite inoperable brain tumor dies

This article is more than 8 years old
  • Lauren Hill chose to attend college and keep playing after diagnosis
  • 19-year-old’s memorial to be held in 10,000-seat Cincinnati arena

A public memorial service will be held on Monday in Cincinnati for a college basketball player who inspired many as she fought an inoperable brain tumor.

Lauren Hill, who was 19, died on Friday at a Cincinnati hospital. She played in four games for Mount St Joseph this past season and made five layups.

The memorial service will be on Monday night at Xavier University’s 10,000-seat basketball arena, the venue where Hill made a layup in front of a sold-out crowd to start the season.

Former Tennessee women’s coach Pat Summitt and several WNBA players were in the crowd that day. Hill went on to help raise $1.5m for cancer research.

Her team-mates and coaches gathered on Friday to remember her at an on-campus vigil.

Hill got international attention last fall when she decided to play on the freshman basketball team at Mount St Joseph even as her tumor was sapping her of coordination and energy.

Recently, she appeared by satellite hookup on ABC’s The View, to talk about her season and her condition. Afterward, she told a WCPO crew that helped set up the interview: “You’re supposed to make the best of every moment, but it’s hard. It’s really, really hard.”

A member of the Mount St Joseph women’s basketball team places a flower in a memorial during a tribute to basketball player Lauren Hill at Mount St Joseph College in Cincinnati. Photograph: Tom Uhlman/AP

Hill developed symptoms during her senior year in high school, and the inoperable tumor was detected. She decided to attend the Division III university and play basketball as planned, her way of making the most of every day she had left. At the school’s request, the NCAA moved up the opening game because of Hill’s deteriorating condition.

The game was switched to Xavier. Hill made the first and last baskets. She played in four games and made five layups before she became too weak to get on the court.

Before the season started, the US Basketball Writers Association voted her the winner of the Pat Summitt Most Courageous Award, which is normally awarded at the Final Four (the honor was noted again at the women’s Final Four last Sunday). Athletes from other colleges autographed No 22 jerseys – her number – and sent them in support. Summitt was among the large group of players and coaches who attended her opening game at Xavier.

Hill also befriended the Cincinnati Bengals defensive lineman Devon Still, whose 4-year-old daughter, Leah, is fighting cancer and got recent scans indicating her chemotherapy has worked. They exchanged jerseys, and she attended a Bengals game last November and met Leah.

During the recent WCPO interview, Hill was asked how she’d like people to remember her.

“She was a hero and she showed cancer who’s boss,” Hill said.

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