Cheer coach finds resilience and acceptance through cancer journey

Jayla Vanhorn
Thu, 21 Mar 2024 01:55:11 +0000
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Siobhan St. John, the assistant cheer coach of the Ohio State cheerleading team, poses next to Ohio State’s mascot, Brutus. Credit: Ohio State Athletics

Siobhan St. John keeps a letter buried deep in one of her journals. Its sentiment reflects a lifelong dream of motherhood and a continued battle with a rare form of cancer.

It begins, “To my child I will never meet.”

At just 18 months old, St. John was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma, a form of cancer that specifically targets the skeletal muscle that accounts for just 3% of cancer cases. The tumor, found in her vaginal canal, would also pose a barrier to having her own biological children, a struggle she details in her memoir, “Scars Left to Heal: A Memoir About Perseverance and Finding Acceptance.”

Twenty years later, St. John found her way to Ohio State becoming the assistant Ohio State cheer coach. Without her own children, she has devoted herself to coaching hundreds of them, sharing a piece of herself with each one.

Her cheer career started after remission as a young child, cheering for her neighborhood youth football league and dancing in local classes. These carefree activities were then accompanied — when she turned 10 — by days spent in the operating room undergoing vaginal reconstructive surgery after it was damaged by chemotherapy.

“What was being explained and what was being felt were two different things, and they weren’t lining up for me,” St. John said. “I just don’t understand why I have to do this. I don’t understand why it’s painful. I couldn’t correlate the two at that time frame.”

School was much harder for St. John given her treatment, but she found continued support on her cheer team. She said cheer had become her “saving grace.”

Ohio State cheerleading coach Siobhan St. John as an 18-month-old being held by her grandmother. Credit: Courtesy of Harry St.John

“Siobhan is naturally a leader,” Addisa Goldman, a longtime friend of St. John’s, said. “So, [being a cheerleader] just came natural to her. When she was in that position, she would let go of all her worries and insecurities, because she was curing that, and we all felt it.”

St. John continued with it with the help of a partial cheerleading scholarship to Morehead State University. As a Black student, the racism she experienced on campus forced her to leave after one semester and return home.

She said she had hit the lowest point in her life.

“It just felt as if the whole world was on my shoulders, and there was nothing anyone could say or do that made me feel worthy, that made me feel comfortable in my own skin,” St. John said. “And it was kind of that point where I’m like, I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t know why I’m here. And it’s just not worth it.”

On that night, she made a vow to herself that she would never return to that dark place again.

After thorough research, St. John found a hospital — MD Anderson Cancer Center — specializing in cases like hers. After finding one in Houston, she underwent surgery there in May 2002.

St. John said the pain seemed to intensify with each session, leading her to stop the procedure. As a result, she chose to undergo a second surgery two years later; the final one that MD Anderson agreed to carry out.

During this time she was also dancing with the Brooklyn Nets, coaching for her alma mater New Rochelle High School and back in school getting her undergraduate degree.

On her next visit to MD Anderson, she received devastating news. St. John found out a hysterectomy was the only viable solution.

“I felt her pain,” St. John’s mother, Diane Battle-Young, said. “I felt helpless. I was as much as a support to her learning that she was going through early menopause, and that she no longer had viable eggs. For the most part, I could only listen.”

St. John underwent a partial hysterectomy in June 2006 at the age of 22.

A 12-inch incision was made from her abdomen down to her belly button, an image she said she vividly recalls to this day, realizing she would no longer be able to hide the scars inflicted by years of surgeries.

Siobhan St. John, Ohio State assistant cheerleading coach, poses for a photo as a dancer for the NBA Brooklyn Nets. St. John was a dancer for the Nets for eight years. Credit: Courtesy of NBA Brooklyn Nets

Remembering the vow she made to herself, St. John knew she couldn’t linger in that dark place for too long.

Just a year out from the surgery she decided to reaudition for the Nets. Initially, she felt self-conscious about her scar, but this feeling disappeared once she started dancing, continuing to live out her dream.

Amid her busy schedule, she continued receiving therapy along with regular checkups regarding her condition after the partial hysterectomy.

With therapy and regular checkups, St. John officially decided to leave the NBA in April 2014. She said it had been eight remarkable years, however, she believed God had greater plans in store for her.

That decision eventually led her to Columbus, but at the same time, a doctor confirmed her worst fears: her likelihood of having any eggs left was slim to none.

Even so, with this new role and support, St. John said she eventually came to understand with the help of her loved ones that she already had children.

“They have given me so much. It’s hard for me to truly put into words,” St. John said. “I think what the athletes I coach will never truly understand is how much they’ve given me way more than I could ever give them.”