NU golf coach inspires team, beats cancer

The irony isn’t lost on Emily Fletcher.

The Northwestern women’s golf coach has had one of the best years of her life.

She’s also had one of the worst. Arguably the worst.

Fletcher was named Big Ten Co-Coach of the Year recently after directing her team to its best season in five years. The honor, shared with Wisconsin’s Todd Oehrlein, is well deserved. The Wildcats were serious contenders in every tournament they played.

They placed 10th at the NCAA regionals last week, finished third at the Big Ten Championship and recorded five top-five finishes in tournaments throughout the regular season, including second at the prestigious Lady Northern.

In between the highlights, Fletcher had some lowlights, starting with spending much of her free time in her doctor’s office for chemotherapy doses and radiation treatments.

Last summer, Fletcher was diagnosed with breast cancer during an annual exam.

Stunningly, her mother Edith, who was her rock in the days and weeks following her diagnosis, also was diagnosed with breast cancer a few months later.

Edith died in March, living only three months past her diagnosis.

Fletcher said there was no previous history of breast cancer in her family.

“It certainly has been ironic how this year has worked out,” said Fletcher, now in her third year at Northwestern. “After a trying nine months, to have it end with us playing well and an honor that was voted on by my peers was very special.

“It was emotional because the whole time I was wishing my mom could have known about all of it.”

More important, Fletcher wishes her mother could know about her recovery. While pressing through golf season, without missing even a beat, Fletcher beat her cancer. At least for now.

Although doctors can’t officially declare Fletcher cancer-free until she hits the five-year mark without a relapse, there are no signs that her cancer spread. Lumpectomy surgery and daily treatments seem to have rid her body of it.

“It was scary and it was challenging. I lost my hair and there were days that I didn’t feel so great,” Fletcher said. “But I feel so fortunate that it wasn’t debilitating for me. The side effects like nausea weren’t so awful that I couldn’t do anything.

“I still had energy and I was still able to work. Every single day, I was aware of how lucky I was to have golf to look forward to. I was able to pour my energy into something other than fighting cancer. Golf let me be someone other than a cancer patient. I got to be a coach again.”

To her players, Fletcher never stopped being a coach. She did what all good coaches do. She inspired.

And not just on the golf course.

“We play a game that is really frustrating. It’s really easy to get down about it,” said former Hinsdale Central standout Alex Lederhausen, a junior for the Wildcats. “But when you see something like what coach Fletcher went through, it really made you think about what is important.

“She was so positive and whenever I got down about little things, I just thought about how she handled everything and that helped me be positive, too.”

Fletcher says her players were a big reason she was able to stay so positive.

They texted her regularly with well wishes. They helped her celebrate milestones in her treatment process by bringing her cupcakes.

“Every time I completed a treatment, it was like they were cheering me on,” Fletcher said. “I know this whole thing was scary for them, just as it was for me. But they really helped me through it and were so supportive and concerned. They made golf such a safe haven and refuge for me.”

pbabcock@dailyherald.com