Love for Baseball Helps Student Fight off Cancer

Clark Shelton was an eighth grade pitcher at the top of his game when life threw him the ultimate curve ball.

He had just pitched a complete game - seven innings of baseball - to lead Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School’s middle school baseball team to victory in the state championship. Already a highly touted pitcher, his dream was to play baseball in college and eventually the pros.

He was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a form of bone cancer. Within two days he went from a healthy young athlete to a kid who would never play again.

“It was a shock,” Shelton said. “But that’s life. You keep going.”

He was at football camp when he felt pain in his right leg - a pain so intense it kept him awake at night. His mother took him to Children’s Health Care of Atlanta and the biopsy revealed cancer. He started treatment the next day. He spent five months undergoing chemotherapy treatment. Then his tibia was surgically removed and replaced with a cadaver bone, as well as half of his knee. Another five months of chemotherapy followed.

The fight to succeed and win at the mound became a fight against cancer for his life.

“It all happened really fast,” he said. “It was a whirlwind of emotions. I didn’t really have time to think about it, which was probably a good thing. I didn’t have time to dwell on it.”

In a matter of days, his baseball career was over. The replacement bone couldn’t run the risk of injury, which meant baseball and football were out of the question.

But even cancer couldn’t keep him away from the baseball mound, Shelton found a way to keep baseball in his life. When he returned to school, he asked if he could help coach the middle school baseball team. Coach Nick Roberts was happy to have him aboard.

“Clark was a fixture around here,” Roberts said. “Everybody loved him. He was my assistant coach. I could not have asked for a cooler person. He’s just got this sense about him; an openness and a serenity. It’s really amazing for a kid his age. His situation made him grow up really fast.”

His younger brother Patrick was playing on the team during Shelton’s time as assistant coach.

“That was interesting,” Shelton said. “He was 14 and I was 18. He didn’t want to listen to me at all. We didn’t really get too involved with each other. I let him do his own thing more so than the rest of the guys.”

After graduation Shelton had planned on attending school at Clemson, but changed his mind at the last minute and decided to attend Georgia Tech. This freshman year, he is student manager of the baseball team, which is currently ranked no. 8 in the nation.

Former Tech player Jay Hood, who is also a Holy Innocents’ graduate, had contacted coach Mark Hall to see how Shelton might be able to get involved with the team.

“Clark is a great kid and a hard worker,” Hall said. “If you look at what he has to go through on a daily basis, and sometimes he tries to do too much. He’s an inspiration for everybody.”

And so Shelton is still around the game he loves, working with Walter Smith, Tech’s manager and trainer for the past 26 years, prepping the locker room on game days, helping the coaches with drills, washing uniforms and pretty much doing everything he could possibly do.

Shelton wants to pursue a sports career and would love be a coach, he said.

“He obviously has a passion for the game,” Hall said. “His ability to play was taken away, but his passion and love of the game didn’t die. This is something that keeps him involved and around the game.”

On a team that’s experiencing a tremendous amount of success, Shelton’s role isn’t exactly a minute one. There are 14 freshmen classmates on the team and there are usually six in the starting lineup.

“We got a great crop of new freshmen this year,” said Mike Huff, assistant director of communications for Georgia Tech Athletics. “And Clark might be the most interesting one of the group. If you’ve never met him, he’s just such a positive person. He’s been hurting lately from the arthritis, but even the way he walks - his limp has a pep to it. He’s a great kid to be around.”

The arthritis on his knee is so bad sometimes he has to receive treatment from the trainers. He’ll ice his knee down to keep it from swelling and at times uses a cane to take some of the pressure off.

This summer, the knee is to be replaced with one that is expected to last 15-30 years.

In between balancing baseball and the rigors of Georgia Tech academics, the first-year business management major also finds time to volunteer at the Rally Foundation, an organization in Georgia devoted to kids with cancer who love to play sports.

“I started working for them two summers ago,” Shelton said. “It’s very sports based and that angle really appealed to me.”

Shelton got involved with the group initially as a Rally Kid, one of hundreds of kids in the Atlanta area diagnosed with cancer.

“He’s just such a great lesson in perseverance,” said Peggy Shaw, public relations director at Holy Innocents. “He’s got such a positive attitude. And there are so many kids who are faced with these dire diagnoses. But they can fight through it. Clark is the personification of that.”

In the meantime he’s content to attend classes, and be around the team. Perspective has a way of changing when you’ve battled literally for your life. The cancer came back last year in his lung, but it was removed and he didn’t have to undergo chemotherapy again.

“My entire outlook on life has changed,” he said. “It’s a more positive outlook. I don’t get down anymore. I know it’s not about what I’m missing out on, but it’s about what doors are open now. I’m trying to look for the new opportunity it creates.”