Soccer helps Case Western student kick cancer

CLEVELAND - Case Western Reserve University ’s Anna Kennedy surely didn’t know it when she started playing soccer as a kid, but over the summer and into this fall, the sport helped her get through the most trying time of her life. Anna had been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma .

"When she initially told me, I was like, really worried and for the next couple of days,” her friend and teammate Anna Selser said. “I would just have moments where I was like, 'what am I going to do if she doesn't make it?'"

"Coming back to Case, soccer, I think that was the least of our worries," Case Western’s soccer coach Tiffany Crooks said.

Kennedy’s main concern was soccer, though.

"There was the initial what is it cause I don't know anything about cancer,” Kennedy said. “Then it was the what is it and then there was the ‘am I going to be able to play soccer and go back to school?'"

Soccer was always Anna’s outlet -- and it was going to help her beat cancer.

"The way she came in determined, she's going to beat it, downplaying everything, it kind of put us at ease,” her teammate Amy Baumann said. “I think and we all rallied behind her."

"As soon as she came to practice, she had a great mentality,” backup goalie Chelsea Lasky said. “You wouldn't know she was sick."

Kennedy came back to school when the team reported in the fall. She did miss a couple of games and practices because of chemotherapy but overall, it hasn’t slowed her down a whole lot.

"That's how Anna's dealt with everything for her entire life,” coach Crooks said. “I think you'll talk to anyone and they'll tell you she's stubborn and she's tough and when Anna makes a decision, that's what's going to happen. I've learned through experience, that is Anna. Anna is a doer."