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Opposing Team Shows Support For Plano Basketball Coach With Cancer

T-shirts and ribbons filled the gym during the basketball game
Scoring,The,Winning,Points,At,A,Basketball,Game
Photo: Brocreative | Shutterstock

Being a team player doesn’t always mean one team. A middle school proved that after supporting an opposing team’s coach battling cancer.

FOX 4 reported that on December 1, Schimelpfenig Middle School in Plano hosted Robinson Middle School for a 7th-grade basketball game. Robinson’s head coach, Victor Bradford, was diagnosed with stage three colon cancer two weeks prior, but that hasn’t stopped him from showing up for his team.

Friends, family and guests showed support for the coach during the basketball game by wearing t-shirts and dark blue ribbons. The ribbon signifies his ongoing battle with colon cancer.

According to FOX 4, the diagnosis caught the coach and his family by surprise. He has not experienced any symptoms until he went to the emergency room for severe stomach aches. Bradford immediately went into surgery following the diagnosis, and now is on the road to recovery with his family and community supporting him.

“The support has been great,” Bradford told FOX 4 while speaking about his family and the community. “I don’t even know what to say.”

Robinson Middle School’s basketball team beat Schimelpfenig by almost 20 points during the December 1 game. Bradford’s nephew plays for the opposing team, but the support from all around kept tension light. The Plano community and Plano ISD are currently raising money to help the coach and his family through his battle with the disease.

"Like I said, the support and my family, man. My wife, Latoya, she is a rockstar,” Bradford said. “She stayed at the hospital the entire time on an uncomfortable couch when I was there. And like my family coming in there every day, you know, friends coming in to sit with me in the hospital so that Latoya could go home and, you know, shower and do stuff in the hospital.”

Local Profile has reached out to Plano ISD for comment. This story will be updated pending response.