Upbeat Lafayette fights cancer Standout Hampden lineman eager to play football for Harvard

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HAMPDEN – Ramsey Lafayette exudes energy, even over the telephone.

On this day he was talking about track and field, weight training, and of course, football.

Lafayette is a talented high school lineman, having starred at Hampden Academy and piqued the interest of at least 30 college programs at all levels.

In reality, the 6-foot-21/2, 265-pound senior didn’t have to think long about his collegiate future. His heart belongs to Harvard.

Lafayette recently gained early acceptance to the prestigious Boston institution – and he expects to join a Crimson football program that is prestigious in its own right, having come off a 10-0 season good for the Ivy League championship and 13th place in the final NCAA Division I-AA rankings.

“It’s nonbinding, but I’m pretty sure I’m going there,” said Lafayette, who is leaning toward studying biology and envisions playing on the defensive line. “I’m really excited to play there, and the coaches I’ve met are great.”

But before he takes on the twin challenges of an Ivy League education and a Division I-AA football career, Ramsey Lafayette faces another challenge – coping with cancer, in this case stage 3A melanoma.

‘A high level of intensity’

Jim Van Uden has coached football at Reeds Brook Middle School in Hampden and at Hampden Academy and has had a first-hand view of Lafayette’s football development.

“Ramsey has a high level of intensity,” said Van Uden, “and from middle school to high school, he’s just grown tremendously both physically and as a leader.”

A starter since his freshman year at Hampden, Lafayette developed into a legitimate college football prospect, and his workouts at a Nike-sponsored combine at Penn State University and a camp at Boston College early last summer reinforced that perception among a wide body of college recruiters.

They could have just asked opposing high school coaches.

“He’s been a pretty good player for Hampden for the last couple of years,” said Butch Arthers, co-head football coach at Belfast High, which competes in the Pine Tree Conference Class B ranks with Hampden Academy.

“We had heard a little about him as a sophomore, and we really took notice of him as a junior. He was a big impact player for them as a defensive end; we struggled to run to his side of the field.”

Lafayette spent the latter part of last summer a world away from football, in Ecuador as part of a cultural exchange. During his five-week stay, he saw both high and low, climbing the Andes to a peak of 16,000 feet and studying marine life on the Galapagos Islands.

But soon after returning to Maine, Lafayette complained to his parents, Danny and Carla Lafayette, about a lingering growth on his stomach that itched. When he went for his preseason football physical, the doctor urged him to have the growth checked out.

Lafayette continued through preseason and played in the Broncos’ season opener against Leavitt of Turner Center.

But hours before a Week 2 home game against Brewer, Lafayette visited a dermatologist who told him the growth looked “very dangerous,” according to Danny Lafayette, a local businessman.

The doctor wanted to do an immediate biopsy, but this was game night, and Lafayette’s love of football took precedent. He played against Brewer and scheduled the biopsy for the following Monday. The biopsy was conducted, with Lafayette requesting extra stitches so he could play in Hampden’s next game at Belfast.

Lafayette didn’t immediately tell his coaches and teammates about his condition and continued his football season – and initial results from the biopsy detected no cancer.

“We were all excited,” said Danny Lafayette.

But some irregularities were discovered, so the sample was sent to a lab in California for a second opinion.

The results weren’t as good. He was found to have melanoma.

According to the Web site melanoma.com, melanoma is a form of skin cancer that begins in melanocytes – cells that make the skin pigment called melanin.

Although melanoma accounts for only about 4 percent of all skin cancer cases, it causes most skin cancer-related deaths. The good news is that melanoma is often curable if it is detected and treated in its early stages.

“I don’t really know how I felt when I first heard about it,” said the 18-year-old Lafayette. “I didn’t know what to think.”

Finally, he shared the news with his teammates.

“Just before one of the games, Ramsey told the rest of the kids what was going on, that this was what he was dealing with,” said Van Uden. “You could hear a pin drop.”

Lafayette subsequently underwent surgeries to remove the growth and two lymph nodes from his stomach.

He later had 21 lymph nodes removed from one of his legs. Twenty of those were found to be clear of cancer, while the other node may be clear, according to Danny Lafayette.

“That’s the way we’re looking at it,” he said.

Lafayette missed the final two games of the Broncos’ season, but he still was selected to several postseason all-star teams, including the All-PTC Class B second team.

“When we had the meeting to pick the all-stars, we all knew he hadn’t been able to play in every game, but everyone thought he was deserving of recognition,” said Arthers.

Looking to the future

Lafayette has not let his current medical condition get him down – on the contrary, it’s full steam ahead.

“It’s frightening as a parent when you learn your child has cancer,” said his father, “but Ramsey is the most positive person I know.”

After the high school season, he visited Harvard, where he renewed ties with members of the college’s coaching staff, a group led by head coach Tim Murphy and defensive line coach Eric Westerfield, with whom Lafayette has had the most personal contact among the Crimson staff.

He also checked out the campus with other football recruits and some of the current players, but during the tour a drainage tube placed in his leg after surgery came out of place.

“He didn’t say anything at first,” said his father, “and he tried to tape it back in place himself. The next day he was really sore, and then he told us what had happened with the tube.”

Upon his return home, Lafayette spent five days in the hospital to deal with infection-related complications due to the incident.

Now he is on to the next stage of his treatment.

Last week he began undergoing interferon treatments. According to the American Cancer Society Web site, interferons are proteins produced naturally by white blood cells that stimulate the growth of certain disease-fighting blood cells in the immune system. Manufactured forms of interferons are used in cancer immunotherapy to improve the body’s natural response to disease.

Lafayette will receive interferon injections five days a week, initially for a month. Four days a week the shots will be administered at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, while on the fifth day the Lafayettes will travel to Boston – in part in anticipation of Ramsey attending Harvard in the fall.

He will be checked after the first month of treatments, which then are expected to be continued at least through the summer.

“I’m hoping to be done with it by August 1 so I’ll be ready to go for preseason football,” he said.

In the interim, Lafayette – who attended school fairly regularly this fall – likely will complete most of his senior-year studies at home with the aid of a tutor, his father said.

Lafayette still harbors hope of competing in track and field for the Broncos next spring, and monitors the progress of fellow shot putter Tyler Eastman of Old Town, who has broken the Eastern Maine Indoor Track League record in the shot put three times in as many meets this season.

“I want to get back out there,” Lafayette said. “Right now I just have so much energy.”

Much of that energy is a product of Lafayette’s personality, but some has come from the support of an extended family that includes everyone from relatives, teammates, and classmates to his father’s business associates and comrades in the football community.

“The community of Hampden has been wonderful,” said Danny Lafayette. “Every week someone is bringing us food. The Hampden Methodist Church has just been great to us, all kinds of people have been sending us cards, and a lot of the kids have been visiting Ramsey. They must have come 12 or 15 at a time when he was in the hospital.”

Ramsey Lafayette hopes those same people will visit him often during the next few years, at Harvard Stadium, where he plans to continue living out his athletic dream.

“It’s not like this is going to end my football career,” he said.

Van Uden, for one, is among many supporters who believe Lafayette will attack this new challenge with as much vigor as he has pursued football excellence.

“You just feel for an 18-year-old kid who has something like this happen to him,” he said. “But he’s pretty strong mentally and emotionally. I’m sure there are times when he says to himself, ‘Why me?’ But he’s a strong kid. He’ll fight it.”