|
UCSD Baseball Player Hangs Hopes on Major League Draft
Brain Tumor Doesn't Deter Athlete's Drive
Ioana Patringenaru | June 4, 2007
Matt Lawson always liked Tim McGraw’s song “Live Like You Were Dying.” He didn’t know that very tune might become the soundtrack of his own life. Lawson, the captain of UCSD’s baseball team, found out he had a brain tumor last year. But that hasn’t stopped him from playing -- and leading his team to one of its best seasons in years.
“I don’t feel sorry for myself,” he said. “I like to live like I’m dying, even though, hopefully, I’m not.”
|
Matt Lawson
Year: Senior
College: John Muir
Major: Management Science
Favorite team: The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
Family: mother Velia, father Roger, brothers Chris and Jason |
|
Lawson had a seizure for the first time in his life at his girlfriend’s house in March 2006. He was taken to Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, where an MRI scan revealed the tumor. He still doesn’t know whether it’s malignant. A biopsy could lead to loss of vision in his right eye – and end his baseball career. So for now, he gets brain scans regularly and hopes the tumor doesn’t grow.
He also hopes to become a professional player. “It’s been my dream my whole life,” he said. Both the Padres and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays are interested in him, said his coach, Dan O’Brien. The teams will still pursue Lawson if they believe his tumor won’t affect his performance, the coach said. The UCSD student will know more June 7 and 8, when this year’s draft takes place.
Meanwhile, he recently found out that “Live Like You Were Dying” is about a baseball player too. Tim McGraw wrote the song in homage to his father, Tug McGraw, a pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies, who lost his life to a brain tumor in 2004. “Ya Gotta Believe” was one of Tug’s catch phrases. The Tug McGraw Foundation, which raises awareness and funds for cancer research, recently singled out Lawson as a living example of these words. Tim McGraw has also invited Lawson to his San Diego concert in July. “So I get to meet Faith Hill,” the 22-year-old UCSD student said. “That’s awesome.”
|
| Matt Lawson at bat at PETCO Park May 1.
(Photo / UCSD Sports Information)
|
|
How does Lawson manage to remain so positive, you might ask. Coach O’Brien points to his maturity. “He has a tremendous ability to handle adversity,” the coach said. Lawson also only worries about things he can control, he added.
Lawson credits his parents, Roger and Velia, for his outlook on life. His father was an adaptive physical education teacher and worked with disabled children. When Lawson would come home complaining about a bad day, Roger would remind him that he had a pretty good life. “You know what? At least you can walk,” he often said. Adopting that kind of attitude takes some practice, Lawson admitted. He seems to have mastered it now. Yes, he has a brain tumor, he acknowledges, but he’s had a healthy, wonderful life these past 22 years.
Baseball has been his passion ever since he can remember, he said. When he was about 2 years old, he used to pick up every object in sight and swing it like a bat. He grew up in Yorba Linda, near Anaheim, a nice neighborhood with a great Little League program. He always knew he would go to Esperanza High School, in Anaheim, home to a strong baseball program and well-known high school baseball coach Mike Curran. That motivated him to practice, often with his father. “You’d better be good, if you want to be able to go there,” he remembers thinking.
UCSD Coach O’Brien had an eye on Lawson ever since high school. But Lawson decided to go to UC Riverside. He left the campus two years later and O’Brien grabbed the opportunity to recruit a new player. Lawson said O’Brien is one of the reasons he decided to come to San Diego. “I love the head coach’s drive and his knowledge of the game,” he said.
|
Lawson in action at PETCO Park.
(Photo / UCSD Sports Information) |
|
A neurologist cleared Lawson to play this season, O’Brien said. He takes anti-seizure medications, but has still experienced a few episodes. Lawson said the seizures seem to have no side effects and that he is functioning normally about 95 percent of the time. This spring, he led his team to its first-ever NCAA regional tournament. “He’s our team leader and we don’t make the regional without Matt,” O’Brien said. Lawson was named to the NCAA’s Division II All-American team in May.
He has often come through when in a pinch, O’Brien said. The highlight of this season, and of his career, took place May 1 at PETCO Park. UCSD was playing Point Loma Nazarene. Lawson lined up for his last at-bat. He knew a fastball was coming. He hit it. Hard. The ball went into the stands. “I did the slowest homerun job that I could do,” he said. UCSD was losing, so he tried not to smile too hard, he added.
As he rounded the bases, he saw his parents jumping up and down in the stands. His little brother was there too. A childhood memory came back to him. He remembered that his mother yelled at him and at his father because they snuck out for baseball practice right before Thanksgiving dinner. Everything he had ever done seemed to lead up to that homerun at PETCO Park, he said. “It was a dream come true.”
|
