T he post-game locker room celebration felt different.

The Stockton University women’s basketball team had just won one of its most dominant games of the 2023-24 season — pounding Montclair State 58-39 at home. Eight of the team’s 13 available players scored, as the Ospreys — led by coach Devin Jefferson — improved to 15-7 overall and moved into first place in the New Jersey Athletic Conference with a 12-3 record.

It was also the team’s annual “Think Pink” game to raise awareness for breast cancer and money for the Kate Yow Cancer Fund.

“It was a really good celebration in the locker room after the game. This was our game. We knew we had to play with all we could give and play our hearts out,” said senior captain Emma Morrone who led the Ospreys with 10 points. “We really came together as a team and won that game for coach.”

A Surprising Diagnosis

Jefferson vividly remembers the day she was diagnosed in June 2022, and cancer might have been the last thing on her mind.

In March 2021, she had gone in for the first mammogram of her life, and the doctor found a “little mark” in her breast. She offered two suggestions: do a biopsy now or wait six months and come back to see if the area changed size.

Jefferson decided to wait, after all there wasn’t any history of cancer in her family. Six months turned into 10 months. “You just get so focused on your job,” Jefferson said.

A second mammogram in April 2022 found the area had grown larger and a biopsy was done. Even then, Jefferson said she wasn’t “really present” when sitting with the doctor after the biopsy results came back.

“I had recruits coming in later that evening. I was on my phone sending some emails,” she said. “The doctor came in, and I saw the look on her face, and I knew this visit was going to be a little longer than anticipated. The doctor started off by explaining the mass she found that got larger, was cancerous.”

Jefferson had Type 1 breast cancer.

“She told me so much that I immediately became numb,” she said. “I’ve always thought in my head, I’m healthy. I was always a fit and healthy person. Although my eating and exercise habits were not great during COVID, I always was in good health. And even though I ran the Marine Corps Marathon 15 years prior, I felt I was a former Division I student-athlete (playing basketball at Seton Hall). I felt I was somewhat conscious of staying healthy. So, I was caught a little bit off guard.”

She had a lumpectomy in September 2022, and that was followed by six weeks of radiation from mid-November to January 2023 — all during the peak basketball season. Jefferson initially decided she wanted to keep her diagnosis private — only telling a few people, including Stockton Athletic Director Anthony Berich.

“I think the first thing you think is you want to do anything you can to help,” Berich said about his initial reaction. “You feel awful that one of your coaches is going through that. Devin is a great coach and a great person. The last thing I was worried about was basketball or anything like that. That didn’t even enter my mind.”

But it mattered for Jefferson. She knew she had to tell her team, and she knew it was going to be emotional. She gathered them together on Sept. 12, 2022, the day before her surgery, and told them she would be out for a couple of weeks.

“And they got silent. And then I just started crying,” Jefferson said. “I tried to be strong for them, and not cry, but I couldn’t hold back.”

Morrone, the team’s point guard and one of its leaders, was taken aback.

“I immediately felt for her because it’s such a hard thing to go through, especially while coaching,” she said. “But, in that moment, it brought us all closer as a team. We were all really supportive, and we wanted to do all we could to take the stress off her.”

That meant Morrone and the other upperclassmen stepping up to keep the team together — going to the weight room to work out, attending study halls together and playing pickup as a team.

“We wanted to make sure we were still locked in as a unit,” Morrone said. “We definitely made an emphasis to keep everything together.”

Jefferson praised her team for how they responded, especially during her radiation treatments, which she said was the most difficult time of her recovery due to extreme fatigue that coincided with the middle of the 2022-23 basketball season.

She didn’t really start feeling like herself again until April 2023. And as time passed and Breast Cancer Awareness Month approached in October, the normally very private coach started to feel comfortable sharing her story with others. The Stockton Athletics website posted a story on Oct. 17. Later in the season, she was interviewed by The Press of Atlantic City and for a podcast by KYW Newsradio in Philadelphia.

“So much with being a coach is you want to appear strong and resilient. You want to appear that nothing gets to you. You want to appear tough all the time. There are also moments where I wanted to appear human, and revealing my personal story with my team was so helpful in my recovery,” Jefferson said. “I was apprehensive at first. I didn’t want them or others to feel sorry for me. However, sharing my story allowed me to connect with my players on a deeper level. I grew strength from them. And I knew Breast Cancer Awareness Month was a big deal, and I felt that it was OK to share my story.”

Plus, she thought her story might spur others to realize the importance of early detection. Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women, and Black women die from the disease at a much higher rate. Also, it’s not necessarily an inherited disease. Most people who are diagnosed have no known family history, according to the American Cancer Society.

“This is a reason that you have to go and get your (mammogram) check-ins,” she said. “If I could be a model for just one other person to go and get an early check. Go get it done.”

The Power of Pink

You couldn’t escape the color at this year’s “Think Pink” game on Feb. 3 — the fans in the stands, other Stockton teams and administrators, the warmup jerseys the Ospreys donned during warmups, and in Jefferson’s skirt as she coached from the sidelines.

But there was one thing Jefferson didn’t expect to see — her entire team wearing pink sneakers.

“They did that all on their own,” she said.

“We always had white shoes before, but the pink shoes brought us all together,” Morrone said. “She saw what we were trying to do. It looked nice on us, I think.”

This year’s game raised $700 for the Kay Yow Foundation, more than any other year Stockton has hosted a game.

“The games have always meant something just for women who have gone through this and those that have lost their lives to breast cancer,” Jefferson said. “But this year, it kind of hit home.”

🎙️ Listen to women’s basketball coach Devin Jefferson talk about her battle with breast cancer in this podcast interview with KYW Newsradio in Philadelphia.