Through cancer, loss, high school basketball team helps coach find ‘Year of Redemption’

In May 2017, David Parsons found out he had Stage III colon cancer. Three weeks later, the West Iredell girls basketball coach was in surgery.

Doctors had to remove 17 centimeters of his intestine.

For Parsons, this was only the beginning of a wild odyssey where he learned to fight the disease, lost his mother -- who had battled cancer twice -- and once got so ill he couldn’t remember coaching entire games.

“I didn’t realize how sick I was,” Parsons said. “There were several games that I watched video of later and never remember even coaching. I would watch myself on tape and wonder why I didn’t do this or didn’t do that. As I watched the tape of those games I remember thinking to myself ‘that guy is not me.’”

As Parsons tells his story, he starts on the night of Dec. 1, 2017.

West Iredell lost 62-46 to Statesville High in a girls basketball game. That was one of the first games, looking back at tapes now, that Parsons doesn’t remember coaching in. In fact, he doesn’t remember driving home that night.

By then, he was six months out from his intestinal surgery and he was going through a rigorous chemotherapy treatment once every two weeks.

It’s funny, he remembers, how a phone call can change your life.

The Diagnosis

Parsons found out he had cancer over the phone just after finishing driving the bus for West Iredell’s senior trip that same day in the spring of 2017.

“When the doctor called, I remember my heart hit the floor,” Parsons said. “But, I really wasn’t scared about the idea of having cancer. My fear was having surgery and having to wear a colostomy bag for the rest of my life. And I didn’t want to go through chemotherapy either, because I had seen what it had done to my mother, (Lois Parsons who had non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma) twice.”

But Parsons decided to keep coaching West Iredell’s volleyball team, even facing chemotherapy.

Parsons was in his second year as the Warriors’ volleyball head coach when he was diagnosed. A year earlier, he was asked to coach the team by former West Iredell athletic director, Buck Gatton, even though Parsons had never coached the sport before. Gatton had a feeling Parsons might do well.

Turned out that Gatton was right.

Parsons first team went 20-5. His second was 27-4 and lost to Carrboro in the N.C. 2A state finals in October of 2017.

That would be the first time coaching sports helped Parsons literally live his life.

“Coaching volleyball, especially in 2017, really gave me something to focus on and something to fight for other than cancer,” Parsons said. “Dealing with all of that and still teaching and coaching became my new normal. It felt good, because I felt like (cancer) wasn’t defeating me.”

Feeling the drain

By the time the 2017-18 basketball season came around in mid-November, Parsons admits he was feeling the effects of cancer and chemotherapy much more.

Because he had gained 40 pounds, doctors made the decision to increase Parson’s chemotherapy dosage and lower the steroids he was taking.

By then, Parsons said he was not only much more drained every day, but also started to have trouble with his memory.

“I kept feeling like I was missing something, but I couldn’t remember what it was,” Parsons said.

As Coach Parsons struggled with his condition, his West Iredell girls’ basketball team didn’t play well either, going 5-19 overall and missing the playoffs for the first time in three seasons.

The Road to Recovery

While the 2017-18 basketball season had taken its toll on Coach Parsons, he was determined to get healthier.

He finished chemotherapy in February of 2018, and felt like he took an even bigger step when doctors removed his port in July of that same year.

“When the doctors were able to take my port out, I felt like it (cancer) was all over, and that I was in remission,” Parsons said. “And I still believe that now.”

Parsons would not coach the volleyball team last fall. His former assistant, Brinsley Stewart took over the program, as planned.

And while Parsons kept himself busy as an assistant coach on the American Legion Post 29 baseball team over the summer, he was eager to get back on the basketball court with his team this season.

Parsons knew he would have a great challenge with a young team that would include two seniors, four juniors, two sophomores and two freshmen.

“With a team that young, you know there are going to be high and lows,” Parsons said. “But I was just looking forward to getting back on the court and being more involved and getting back to being the coach I wanted to be.”

Another Scare, a major loss

West Iredell started respectably this season, going 4-4 into Christmas break. Four of Parsons’ starting five players were underclassmen, including 14-year-old freshman Lariyah Clark, the teams’ leading scorer.

But then, Parsons’ life got flipped upside down again.

His doctors found a nodule on his left lung in a routine scan in November, and ordered a biopsy for Dec. 21. Parsons had to wait nearly a month, through the holidays, to get the result.

And while he was waiting, nervous as you might expect, he got a phone call from his father, Earl. When his cell phone rang, Parsons was driving a bus full of students during exam week.

Earl Parsons had horrible news.

He told his son that his mother wouldn’t wake up.

By the time Parsons got to his parent’s Lenoir home, the ambulance was leaving the house with the lights off.

Parsons says he knew at that moment that his mom had passed away.

Lois Parsons was 74.

And this was the same day that Parsons, the coach, would find out the results of his biopsy.

Winning for Coach Parsons

Saddened, Parsons arrived at the doctor’s office and found out they needed to remove a cancerous nodule in his left lung, which was growing slowly.

Already grieving, Parsons had to figure out how to deal with this, too.

Parsons will have surgery to remove the nodule next month.

While Parsons, his family and friends grieved the loss of his mother, his West Iredell girls’ team did something the coach will never forget.

Coach Parsons would not be on the sideline for their Jan. 18 game at Draughn because it was the same day as his mother’s funeral.

The game would be filled with emotion from the start as Draughn’s coaches, players and crowd observed a moment of silence for coach Parsons and his family.

Parson’s seat, the first seat on the West Iredell’s team bench, was filled by a purple teddy bear.

Purple was Lois Parsons’ favorite color.

Parsons’ assistant, Ryne Cooper, who filled in as head coach, wore a purple suit with a purple tie.

West Iredell beat Draughn 59-48.

“We weren’t going to lose that game (to Draughn),” West Iredell senior Vanessa Kersey said. “I made sure all the girls on the team knew we had to win it for Coach Parsons. He’s been like a dad to me. We’ve had a special relationship all four years that I’ve played on the team.”

The West Iredell team also called Parsons after the game to include him in their post-game celebration.

Another Touching Tribute

Coach Parsons returned to his team for their next game, which would be a home game against first-place East Burke.

While East Burke would go onto win the game 66-47, Parsons’ team gave him a memorable pre-game tribute.

As warm-ups started, the music slowly changed into gospel with the West Iredell girls running out. The team did a half circle around the court before coming to stop in front of their coach.

The players set down the basketballs to reveal that each had a white carnation.

One-by-one, each West Iredell player waited their turn to give coach Parsons a flower and a hug.

As tears came down Parsons’ face, he turned around and saw East Burke basketball coach Crystal Bartlett holding a carnation for him, too.

“I honestly had no idea what was happening the whole time,” Parsons said. “When they put down their basketballs, I was almost about to say ‘What are you doing? And, then, I’m like oh, man!’”

Life Lessons

The West Iredell girls’ basketball team’s season ended last Wednesday when the Warriors lost to Newton’s Fred T. Foard High School 70-59 in the Northwest Foothills’ 2A conference tournament quarterfinals.

But for coach Parsons and his team, their 8-16 finish doesn’t even begin to tell the whole story.

“You can’t fight battles like this alone, you’ve got to help people there to help you,” Parsons said. “I’ve been thoroughly blessed to have so many people in my life over these last two years. This year, even though we finished 8-16, it was a year of redemption for me. Being able to be my old self, coach like I want to, and be a leader that this team (West Iredell) could look up, that was the biggest win of all.

“A lot of times the biggest victories for a coach and a team don’t come on the basketball court. This was definitely the most special season I’ve ever had as a coach for sure.”