Lauren Hill, 19-year-old college basketball player, dies of cancer

By Joe Kay April 10 at 1:26 PM

Lauren Hill spent her final year polishing a layup and inspiring others to live fully. She succeeded at both as she fought an inoperable brain tumor.

The 19-year-old freshman basketball player at Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati died April 10 at a Cincinnati hospital, the co-founder of her nonprofit foundation, Brooke Desserich, told the Associated Press.

Ms. Hills nonprofit foundation helped to raise more than $1.5 million for cancer research.

She not only became a spotlight on the lack of funding for cancer research, but she most certainly has become a beacon guiding researchers for years to come, Desserich said.

A year and a half ago, Ms. Hill was just another high school student getting ready for college. She decided to play basketball at Mount St. Joseph, a Division III school. Soccer was her favorite sport, but basketball became her selling point.

A few weeks later, she started experiencing dizziness while playing for her high school team in Lawrenceburg, Ind. Tests found the tumor. Treatment didnt work. She knew she had less than two years left.

Im spreading awareness and also teaching people how to live in the moment because the next moments not promised, Ms. Hill told the AP after one of her teams 6 a.m. practices. Anything can happen at any given moment. What matters is right now.

For Ms. Hill, that meant spending time with her parents and a brother and sister, going to college, raising money for cancer research, inspiring others, and achieving her goal of scoring a basket in a game.

The NCAA agreed to let Mount St. Joseph move up its opening game against Hiram College by two weeks because Ms. Hills condition was deteriorating. Xavier University offered its 10,000-seat arena in Cincinnati, so more people could attend. Tickets sold out in less than an hour.

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Lauren Hill, 19-year-old college basketball player, dies of cancer