BGI freebie. Same article.
November 23, 2006
Thankful for a New Beginning
by ALLISON HAYES
Special Guest
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When Notre Dame senior Travis Leitko’s family sits down to the dinner table on Thanksgiving Day, it will have extra special meaning.
“Last year, we really didn’t have holidays,” Mike Leitko, Travis’ father said. “You have to think about what everybody went through and how it could have come out a whole lot differently.”
Janice Leitko, Travis’ mother says 2005 was an unforgettable year for their family – for the wrong reasons.
“When I see it on paper, it’s like it happened to someone else,” Janice said.
In 2005, Travis was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder and forced to leave Notre Dame because of poor academics. He returned home to take care of his grades, but more importantly to take care of his mother. Janice was undergoing treatment for cervical cancer.
“Emotionally it was...difficult,” Travis said with a heavy sigh. “We had gone through a lot already.”
While at home, he helped take care of his mother, who was bed-ridden from May through Thanksgiving Day 2005.
“He did things that a child shouldn’t have to do,” Janice said with tears welling up in her eyes. “But, he took care of us.”
Over time, Janice’s health improved and Travis was attending a local community college, where he focused on how to overcome his learning disability. Just when life felt like it was getting back on track, the family took another blow. His father Mike was diagnosed with prostate cancer.
“I didn’t know I was that sick until after I went through the hospital and the doctors told me I was sick,” Mike said. “I wasn’t expected to make it.”
Mike is a big man, a former SMU football player, but the thought of leaving his family can bring even the biggest man to tears.
“Dying...We’re all gonna die and I’m going to heaven – it was just leaving the family that was tough,” his voice shaking. “That would have been tough, thinking about them without me.”
But after successful surgeries for Mike and months of chemotherapy and radiation treatments for Janice, their prayers were answered. With the start of a New Year, both Janice and Mike rang in 2006 recovered and in remission. Now it was time for Travis to get back to Notre Dame, where he belonged. The time he had spent home in Texas with his family also allowed him time for himself.
“I’ve always been very fast-paced,” Travis said. “To have time to sit back, reflect, gather yourself...it was something I wouldn’t say I wanted, but probably needed. I re-evaluated my goals, what’s important in life. When your family is ill, it makes you think about those things. Although I keep pushing myself, I know it’s okay to sit back and take things in.”
Travis changed his major from aerospace engineering to history and his grades improved. He returned to the football team in August as a walk-on and eventually earned back his scholarship as a fifth-year senior.
“I thanked him (Coach Charlie Weis) for the opportunity and I told him ‘I’m not here for hand-outs,’ ” Travis recalls. “I’m not here for any gifts or for anyone to take pity on me. I want to earn what I get and I never want it any other way.”
He bulked up and when he returned to the team and was switched from defensive end to defensive tackle. He has played in all 11 games this season, primarily on special teams, and seen spot duty while relieving Derek Landri and Trevor Laws. His football career did not finish out as he had hoped, but he has made the most out of his second chance.
“It was tough being away from the team,” Travis said. “You could feel it in your bones that you should be there...I’ve learned not to take anything for granted.”
His father agrees.
“We know who’s looking over us and taking care of us,” Mike said. “Everything that Travis has gone through, there’s got to be a reason. I can’t figure it out; Mom can’t figure it out...Travis is trying. But, I’m sure something good will come out of all of this.”
Travis will go down in the books as a varsity letter-winner for the Fighting Irish and will graduate with a degree in history in the spring. Seeing her son back at Notre Dame is a dream come true for Janice, but she never had any doubt.
“Determination, that’s what has gotten him back. He’s done it on his own,” Janice said beaming with pride. “He loves Notre Dame with all of his heart. We’re so proud of him.”
As Travis stood at center-court of the Joyce Center on Senior Day during the pep rally for the Army game, with his mother to his right and his father on his left, it served as a crescendo to everything the Leitkos have overcome.
“It’s just been miraculous,” Janice said with a smile. “2006 is our year.”
You can see Allison on Friday night's Sports Extra with Dean Huppert, anchoring sports on Saturday and Sunday nights, and during the week reporting on sports stories for Fox 28 - WSJV.
