If everything had gone according to plan, Dustin Maguire would be playing a basketball game for Northern Kentucky University on Wednesday afternoon rather than lying on an operating table undergoing another surgery – this one more serious than any he’s had in the last year.<\/p>\n
Maguire, who came to NKU as a transfer from Division I St. Louis University in time for the 2008-09 season, had back surgery in July to relieve the pain of a bulging disc that had sidelined him for all but a few games last season, just a couple of months after having surgery to remove a cancerous left testicle, with neither having anything to do with the other.<\/p>\n
He spoke optimistically in late July about getting the chance to play basketball again, especially pain free, and he had been accepted to Chase College of Law on NKU’s campus. It was going to be the chance to play one more season, and maybe even two if he earned a medical hardship from the NCAA.<\/p>\n
It was in September as he was going through preseason conditioning, rehabilitating his back and just a few weeks into his first year of law school when a routine blood test resulted in Maguire receiving some horrifying news: the cancer was back and had spread to his lymph nodes.<\/p>\n
“It’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard coming from a player,” said NKU head coach Dave Bezold. “I’ve been told so and so is ineligible and so and so has an injured knee. Those things aren’t life and death. The first thing that went through my mind is, ‘Are you going to be OK?’ ”<\/p>\n