Scarlett Young remembers the strong words of her son Yancey after he was diagnosed with cancer last summer.

“He was like, ‘Don’t feel sorry for me. Don’t cry in front of me,’” she said. “We went by those rules. We didn’t want to hear any sad stories. We never googled anything. We just didn’t want to know.

“Yancey was stronger than my husband and I combined. From Day 1, he was like, ‘I’m playing baseball next year.’ That was his goal. That is what drove him during those long days and nights.”

On July 19, 2023, Yancey Young was diagnosed with Stage 3 T Cell Lymphoblastic Lymphoma. At that time, the thought of him playing his senior year for the Sumiton Christian baseball team seemed unlikely.

“They told us from the start he was going to have to go through seven months of intense chemotherapy,” his father, Daniel, said. “I started doing the math in my mind and knew that would take us right up to the start of baseball season. My wife and I went out of the hospital room and asked the doctors if they thought he would be able to play. They said it was going to be really hard. We didn’t tell him because we wanted him to have something to fight for.”

Fighting is exactly what Yancey Young did.

Thirty treatments, five hospitalizations and four surgeries after his diagnosis, Young was on the field and playing a key role as his Sumiton team defeated Sweet Water to win the Class 1A state baseball title at Jacksonville State University.

“It meant everything to me to be able to get back and have a starting role on the team,” he said. “You can’t match that feeling of winning the whole thing. It’s really just a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”

Young and his family were back in Jacksonville on Sunday night as he accepted the annual Jimmy Smothers Courage Award at the 52nd annual Alabama Sports Writers Association banquet.

“I think it was Yancey who said a setback is never as great as a comeback,” Sumiton Christian coach Ricky Bowen said.

The trial begins

Entering last summer, Young thought Sumiton Christian might be a true contender for the 2024 state baseball title. The centerfielder and his teammates had recently lost a tough, three-game quarterfinal series against eventual champion Appalachian in the 2023 playoffs.

However, Young began dealing with unusual back pain during the summer travel ball season.

“He kept complaining of his back hurting,” Scarlett said. “We had been to two doctors, and they thought he just had a pulled muscle, but the pain just wouldn’t go away. We finally went to the ER (UAB standalone clinic in Gardendale), and that’s when they found the mass. He was in so much pain.”

The Youngs never expected that type of news, of course. In fact, Scarlett told her husband, who works an early morning shift, to stay home while she and Yancey went to the emergency room.

“We thought it was nothing,” she said. “I told Daniel to stay home. The doctors walked into the room, and they said, ‘We see a mass by his heart.’ I couldn’t hear anything they said after that.”

The large mass was, in fact, so close his heart it would be too dangerous to remove it.

Doctors sent Yancey straight to the hospital by ambulance due to the severity of the situation. He had a biopsy to discover exactly what type of cancer it was and, within two days, had a port put in and started chemotherapy. He was in the hospital for 13 days during that initial stay.

“When this all started, the doctors said, ‘I know you don’t want your son to have cancer, but this is the best kind to have if you have to have it,’” Scarlett said. “They said it was the most treatable. He’s had a hard road, but they did give us a great outlook from Day 1.”

Yancey said he can’t remember his thoughts when he was first diagnosed.

“I think mostly shock,” he said. “You never think something like this will happen to you.”

The support system

During the months to come, the Youngs had plenty of support.

“Sumiton Christian was awesome to him and our family,” Scarlett said. “They surrounded him from the first day. They loved on him. They were his biggest supporters. You could see how much the school and the players loved him and supported him, especially in those playoff games.”

Bowen said the team covered Yancey in prayer from the beginning and did whatever they could to help.

“We brought food because he loves to eat,” he said. “We brought him Legos – anything we could think of to do. I give a lot of credit to Yancey for making this — not a group of individuals — but a family. We rallied with him and behind him.”

The support didn’t go unnoticed by Yancey.

“The school was really good to me,” he said. “My teammates were some of my biggest supporters. That’s what really got me through it. They made it as easy as possible.”

Back to baseball

Sumiton started working toward the 2024 baseball season in earnest in January. Young obviously was still going through chemotherapy.

That didn’t stop him from being with his team.

“He was taking chemo three days a week,” his mom said. “He would come home and take a nap and go to baseball practice. He went to every game except when he was in the hospital. Even if he couldn’t play, he went, and Ricky would try to get him at least one at-bat a game if he could.”

The most intense part of the chemotherapy came in March, and Yancey was hospitalized for 19 days.

“His body had no immune system so he kind of totally bottomed out,” Scarlett said.

“I was just tired all the time,” Yancey said about the month of March. “I didn’t get sick that much, but I was just so tired.”

Young worked his way back and – despite taking 16 pills a day and still having treatments – he played a key role in his team’s championship run.

“Seeing him on the field this playoff run wasn’t a gimmick,” Bowen said. “I honestly believe he gave us the best chance to produce offensively. Yancey finds barrels and moves the ball. Knowing what he has been through, his determination to be on the field with his teammates, his brothers, means everything. Yancey made this team. He was the glue that held us together. He is a true competitor who never gives up.”

Young played in just 14 games and had only 33 plate appearances during the season, but he played a key role against Sweet Water in the Class 1A finals, capping an emotional and arduous 10 months.

“I was sobbing in those final three games,” Scarlett said. “Ten months ago, cancer happened. Doctors told him he might never play baseball again, but he was able to DH the last three rounds. Game 3 was a miracle. It’s really indescribable. It’s amazing to see what strength and determination will do.”

In Sumiton’s 14-3 Game 3 win, Young went 3-for-4 as the team’s designated hitter with three RBIs and a run scored. He also had a walk.

“I didn’t know until it was over, but my best friend was keeping up with the stats,” Daniel Young said. “He told me Yancey actually had the last hit and last RBI of the season. If that isn’t God showing out. It was pretty awesome.”

Now and moving forward

Young was back in the hospital last week – his sixth stay since July – dealing with pneumonia. He was released Wednesday.

“It was a freak thing,” Scarlett said. “He went to chemo last Friday and had a fever. Usually with cancer, if you get a fever, you are admitted because your immune system is so weak. He was basically in there so they could watch him.”

Unfortunately, his latest hospital stay forced the family to postpone his Make-a-Wish trip to Disneyworld, which was originally scheduled to start Sunday. They will likely do that later in the year.

Yancey is currently in the maintenance stage of chemotherapy. His mom said he will go monthly for two years. He will not officially ring the bell to signal the end of treatment until that is finished.

The mass is still next to his heart, but doctors consider it dead tissue and are hoping it will just shrivel away one day, his mother said.

Meanwhile, Yancey is making plans for college. He will attend UAB in the fall and serve as a student manager with the baseball team. He hopes he is not done playing the sport he has loved since he was 3.

“I’m willing to play anywhere,” he said. “This year, I’m going to go to UAB and see if I can get back to where I was, and we will just see if I can play again at some point.”

“He is following his dream,” Scarlett said. “He is not letting cancer stop him.”