Jackson football family helps Mandy Rohr battle breast cancer

JACKSON TWP. It's July 15, and Mandy Rohr hides behind a concession stand at Robert Fife Stadium.

She sobs as she waits for her husband, Jackson Polar Bears defensive coordinator Jay Rohr, to finish coaching a 7-on-7 against Alliance.

Six months after giving birth to the couple's fourth child, she's been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Upon hearing the news and trying to absorb what this means for their family, Jay considers an option that Mandy considers unthinkable.

"The first thing he said to me was, 'I don't have to coach,'" Mandy recalls. "I said, 'You're coaching. That's what we do. That's what we know.'"

"She would not let me quit," Jay says.

With rivalry week here in football-mad Stark County, the Rohrs provide a lesson on what sports can truly mean beyond the competition.

Mandy basically commanded Jay to keep coaching not because wins and losses are so important. She told him to keep coaching because football is a way of life for the Rohrs. The coaches, the players, the parents ... they become a family of their own.

And as Mandy has endured two surgeries, numerous physical therapy sessions and four weeks of radiation treatments to get to a point where she is in remission, that extended family has played a crucial role in her journey.

"We've just kind of sat back and done our own thing, and people have just come out of the woodwork. This community is just ... ," Mandy said, searching for the right words. "I was on a walk one day and someone stopped me -- a guy I didn't know -- and said, 'I heard what was going on with you. I just want to tell you that every single person in Jackson Township is praying for you.' I truly feel that."

The support ranges from the spiritual to the practical.

The Polar Bears -- at 7-2 and basically guaranteed a spot in the playoffs win or lose in Friday's game at Hoover -- wear a sticker on their helmets with Mandy's initials and a breast cancer awareness ribbon on it. Mandy talks of gifts, letters and visitors from a variety of people and organizations, including the Jackson Sideliners' Mama Bears.

A meal train was created to take some of the burden off of Mandy as she balanced her medical appointments with tending to 7-year-old twin sons JJ and Jordy, 3-year-old daughter Avery and 9-month-old son Jace.

The Rohrs shake their heads at the outpouring of love and support.

"We couldn't have gotten through this without Jackson Township," Mandy said. "This is our home."

Mandy, a native of northwestern Ohio, is a 37-year-old wife and mother who works from home for an education sales company so she can be with the kids as much as possible. Her 36-year-old husband happens to be one of the greatest football players to ever come out of Jackson and now is in his fifth year coaching back at his alma mater, where he serves as an intervention specialist.

The couple met at the University of Akron when Jay played for the Zips. They have been married for 11 years.

A coach's wife though and through, Mandy organized a weekly tradition where local businesses donate lunches -- which she picks up and delivers -- for Jackson's coaches every Saturday as they break down game film. She welcomes around 20 players to her home every week so they can watch film with Jay and have Nerf gun wars with JJ and Jordy.

"They're like my own kids," Mandy said about the players. "Every year I'm that coach's wife in the back of the banquet sobbing because these seniors are leaving. I get emotional thinking about it."

The players got Mandy a cake for her birthday back in September.

Other than taking a leave of absence from work, Mandy has continued to stay active with team functions despite painful complications from surgery, the extreme exhaustion from her radiation treatments and every other difficulty her condition brings.

"We obviously believe the Lord has a plan for everyone, and we just try not to dwell on it," Jay said. "Everyone has problems and everyone has issues. Unfortunately it happened to us, but we're going to make the most of it. I think it's a blessing we have four kids and it's almost a blessing it happened this time of year, because she's extremely active. She's not thinking about it. She's not worrying about it."

Missing a game is out of the question for Mandy.

That kind of determination runs in the family.

"Jay is one of the hardest working persons, if not the hardest working person, I've ever met," Jackson head coach Tim Budd said. "He'll stay up all night to get something done. His ability to stay focused through all this has been phenomenal."

To Budd's point, consider that Jackson's defense is one of the best in the area this season, allowing only 11.9 points a game.

"Jay and Mandy have handled everything with such grace," Budd said. "It's really been inspirational. I know our players really care for her and I hope we've given her something to cheer about."

The Rohrs certainly count their blessings. The last three-plus months could've been so much worse. They watched Mandy's father pass away from renal cell cancer three years ago, which is one reason they've hidden her condition from their kids. Her tumor was not large enough to require chemotherapy, sparing her the suffering it brings.

Mandy finished her radiation treatments on Oct. 15 and is on the road to recovery. It will take five years of clean scans for her to be considered "cancer free."

If any problems arise, she knows she's got a community behind her and a pretty good coach in her corner.

"He is tough on me just like he is with his players," Mandy said of Jay. "But we were hit with a very serious health condition and he needs to have a mother here for his four kids. So he is hard on me.

"But don't let this old linebacker fool you. He's been up many nights with me crying and praying.

"So he's just the perfect mix. He can read me like he can read his defense."

Reach Josh at 330-580-8426 or josh.weir@cantonrep.com

On Twitter: @jweirREP

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