POWERING THROUGH
Weeks before Powers’ junior season was to begin a year ago, his father, Sean, was diagnosed with brain cancer and given just a year to live
Corey Powers’ Wilson lacrosse teammates were devastated when their season was wiped away by the coronavirus pandemic last spring.
The Bulldogs were thinking big, with district and state championships on their minds.
For most the disappointment eventually waned; for Powers it was different.
“It hit a little bit harder for me,” he said.
Corey Powers badly needed a stick in his hands this time a year ago. Weeks before his junior season was to begin, his father, Sean, was diagnosed with brain cancer and given just a year to live. Corey was reeling.
“I was looking for lacrosse to be my outlet from all that,” Corey said. “That was my way to get away from everything, my emotional outlet ... then that got taken away.”
Sean Powers felt perfectly fine that February morning when he reported to work at the Reading Hospital SurgiCenter at Spring Ridge. Without warning he was stricken with a seizure so violent it dislocated both shoulders and shattered both the humerus in his left arm and the ball in his shoulder socket. He was rushed to Reading Hospital, where he suffered a second seizure.
A CT scan revealed a tumor in his left frontal lobe.
Sean Powers, then 51, was told he might not make it much past his 52nd birthday.
Dealing with such news was devastating for he and his wife, Tracy; breaking it to Corey and their older son, Collin, was exponentially more painful.
“That was the hardest thing I ever did,” Sean said. “We cried.”
“It was a really hard talk,” Corey said.
He remembers his dad telling him: “We’re gonna fight; we’re gonna power through it.”
“You can work out your frustration on the field,” Sean told him.
“It’s certainly a difficult thing (to hear),” said Wilson lacrosse coach Bill Waldron. “And then to not have your support system as readily available as they might have been, and then to not have your season ... it was a very tough time for (Corey).”
A lost season seems insignificant compared to the struggles Sean Powers and his family experienced in the months that followed. He endured five surgeries, battled an infection from the brain surgery and allergic reactions to two different antibiotics, and underwent aggressive
monthly rounds of radiation and chemotherapy. He was in and out of the hospital for months and made regular trips to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center for treatment.
As a show of support, Sean’s wife and sons got tattoos.
Collin, a former Wilson quarterback, swimmer and lacrosse player who was in his final semester at the University of Pittsburgh, had grey cancer ribbons and the words “Power Through” drawn on his right bicep.
Corey has “PWR” and “THRU” across his right and left thighs, just above the knees.
Tracy has the word “Hope” on her left forearm.
Looking for a way to fill the void left by losing his lacrosse season, Corey opted to return to football, which he had played through 10th grade.
“That turned into my outlet,”
he said. “I was working out all the time.”
The former quarterback earned all-league honors as an outside linebacker and tight end. He enjoyed an unforgettable moment when he threw a flea-flicker for a touchdown in a 27-12 win over Hempfield that clinched the Lancaster-Lebanon League Section 1 title.
The Wilson football staff designed the play just for him and named it “Austin,” a takeoff on the movie “Austin Powers.”
Sean, a former Gov. Mifflin football player who coached both his boys in the Van Reed youth program, didn’t miss a single game, though it was far from easy. Weakened by ongoing chemo and radiation treatments, he struggled at times to make it. Sometimes he couldn’t stand. But he was there.
“He refuses to miss anything our children do,” Tracy said. “We live for this stuff.”
Sean and Tracy returned home from Pittsburgh following a procedure Oct. 30; the next afternoon they were at Manheim Central to see Corey catch two passes in his final football game, a 4021 win.
“It’s a blessing to watch him play, and to be with my family,” Sean said.
The news has been all good lately. Sean returned to work in December. He continues to take monthly chemo treatments; quarterly MRIs show the tumor has been kept at bay. Doctors are hopeful it will remain that way for many years.
Corey has emerged as one of the top players in the Berks Boys Lacrosse League and a key for its most dominant team. He’s among the league’s top scorers, with 23 goals and 24 assists in 12 games, and is one of the key reasons the Bulldogs are expected to win a ninth straight BCIAA title.
“His ability to create opportunities for his teammates is really what keeps our offense fueled and running,” Waldron said of the 6-3, 195-pound Powers. “He can score, (and) he looks to create opportunities for his teammates. He’s the key piece.
“He’s a pretty strong young man that’s dealt with a lot of very tough things over the course of the last year. He’s come through it and been a leader, and a great player.”
Corey will never lack for inspiration. In the toughest of times he can look to the stands and see his father.
“I’ve just got to power through,” he said. “If he can (go through what he’s gone through), then I can do anything.”