Silent Perseverance
Tennis player recovers after stoic bout with brain tumor

By Natascha Terc
Skiff Staff

His tan is a California brown that any college woman would envy. If you played tennis against him, the only way you’d win is if he let you. He would easily tell you he cherishes the simple things in life — family, friends and health.

But you still wouldn’t know why he puts that extra force behind every swing of his tennis racquet or jumps out of bed a little quicker than everyone else.

“It’s personal,” Michael Leonard said matter of factly. “And I don’t particularly like talking about it.”

If he really got to know you, he might tell you. But even then, he still might not.

Tim Cox/SKIFF STAFF Senior tennis player Michael Leonard is quiet about his surgery which removed a brain tumor during his freshman year, but his teammates say his inspiration is very evident on the court.

A new recruit for the university’s tennis team, Leonard came to TCU as a freshman in the fall of 1997. Just three weeks into the semester, the political science major left after he found out that he had a brain tumor. A senior now, Leonard detaches himself from the experience, but he cannot separate himself from how it has changed his outlook on life.

Leonard speaks of that time in his life as one might recall a memory, fading slowly, but never forgotten. Did that really happen? Was that really me?

Leonard said the four years since he first left TCU have taken the sting away from the memory.

At a routine physical for freshman athletes, the doctor shined a small light into Leonard’s eyes. He noticed something odd, probably a swollen optic nerve, the doctor said. No big deal.

Just days after the exam, Leonard went home to California for his sister’s wedding. Following the doctor’s suggestion, Leonard made an appointment at his regular eye doctor.

“(My eye doctor) sent me to a neurosurgeon as a precautionary measure, and I had an MRI done,” Leonard said. “I felt perfect, so I was like, ‘They’ll take care of it somehow.’”

Never having had a broken bone or serious illness, Leonard could have been the poster child for good health. He knew this wasn’t going to be anything serious.

“I found out it was a tumor two days before my sister’s wedding,” Leonard said. “(The doctors) said it wasn’t an emergency, but the tumor was something that needed to be taken care of. They told me to go to my sister’s wedding, enjoy myself and not worry about it.”

Leonard said the news hit him like a baseball bat.

“I think the first day, I didn’t lose it, but I was kind of freaked out,” Leonard said. “Then I decided to be grown up about it and just deal with it.”

And he did.

Neither Leonard nor his parents mentioned the tumor until after his sister’s honeymoon.

“I knew I was going to be alright, or at least in my mind I was,” Leonard said. “The main thing I was bummed out about was not being able to go back (to TCU) because I had really been enjoying it.”

Leonard said he was reassured when the doctors told him the tumor was probably benign.

“They told me they could almost guarantee it wasn’t cancerous and that it was as good a situation a person could have under the circumstances,” Leonard said.

Leonard underwent a 10-hour surgery to remove the benign tumor and spent 10 days in the hospital.

“I got lucky because it wasn’t (cancerous),” Leonard said. “If it had been cancerous, I wouldn’t be sitting here now; I’d be dead.”

Despite his attempts to detach himself from the memory, Leonard said his outlook on life is forever changed.

“I try to take the positive from everything,” Leonard said. “A lot of things that would’ve bothered me before, don’t now.

“When you have the idea of losing your health, it puts an incredible amount of things in perspective. I’ve enjoyed college 10 times more just because it was taken away from me.”

Former TCU tennis coach Tut Bartzen, who has known Leonard and his family for many years and recruited him to the university, said he was impressed with how Leonard handled the situation.

“It was devastating to (the team) when it happened,” he said. “It was such a serious situation, but it was great to see how well he handled it.”

Bartzen said Leonard was an inspiration to the rest of the team.

“To have that type of surgery and come back with the type of determination he had — he went through the thing like a champ,” Bartzen said. “I think Mike realized he dodged a bullet. If anything, his spirit was better.”

Justin Gagnon, Leonard’s teammate and close friend, said it was a shock when Bartzen told the team Leonard had to leave for medical reasons.

“The team was having a blast getting to know each other, and the next thing we knew he was gone,” Gagnon said. “(Everyone) was like, ‘Hey, where’s Mikey?’”

Team members sent cards and called Leonard while he was in the hospital.

“(Leonard) will go out of his way to help you and not think twice about it,” Gagnon said. “We all wanted him to know we were with him and supported him.”

Leonard returned to TCU in the spring of 1998.

“(When he came back), it was like nothing even happened,” Gagnon said. “He just wanted to be like everyone else.”

Leonard said everyone goes through bad times in life, whether it’s the death of a parent or hard financial circumstances.

“I really do believe that if you ask any person, something really horrible has happened in their life,” Leonard said. “Hopefully, I got through mine.”

While others in his situation might have feared surgery or even death, Leonard remembers his biggest fear was making his family and friends worry.

“My thinking was that if I kind of play it off, then everybody else will, and that’s what I wanted,” Leonard said. “I never wanted this to be a big deal, even after I came back (to TCU). I don’t ever want sympathy, and I don’t deserve any because I’m fine.”

When he returned to TCU, Leonard didn’t tell anyone about what happened.

“I just continued as if I was just an incoming spring freshman,” Leonard said. “I really felt as if I was coming to TCU as a normal guy, and I was coming in as a normal person.”

Leonard is still on the tennis team, but he only tells people who are really close to him what happened.

“I did it, I dealt with it — it’s over,” Leonard said. “The last thing I want is people coming up to me saying they’re sorry about what I went through. It’s a part of my life I’m trying to forget.”

Natascha Terc
n.f.terc@student.tcu.edu