Cycling with Lance
By Linda Evans
Editor, RichmondNow
Charlie Bird, '06, has competed in soccer, hockey and golf, but he really didn't know what adversity was until the day he was diagnosed with cancer.
After discovering a nine-inch tumor in his chest, doctors told Bird he had Hodgkin's disease, one of two types of cancer of the lymph system, which protects the body from disease and infection. He was a junior in high school and thought he probably had a case of "rink lung," a common malady of hockey players.
The next few years involved repeated rounds of chemotherapy and radiation, along with an infusion of his own harvested stem cells, but Bird says, "It's the best thing that's happened in my life." The disease brought him closer to his friends, and he says, "I met a lot of great new people. I would never want [the experience] removed from my life."
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Charlie Bird, '06. (I.) rides in Austin with Lance Armstrong (R.).
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While continuing to play soccer, Bird says cycling indoors was a big part of his rehabilitation. So it was only natural that he would get involved in the Lance Armstrong Foundation (LAF), an organization founded by the seven-time Tour de France champion to advance cancer research and inspire cancer patients and survivors through advocacy, research and education.
As one of the top 140 people to raise money for LAF in 2005, Bird earned a trip to Austin, Texas, in October to participate in the annual Ride for the Roses, during which he rode alongside Armstrong. He also attended a special dinner with Armstrong and comedian Robin Williams as a member of the second-highest-polka dot-level of fundraisers for 2005.
Bird raised $16,000 for the foundation in his hometown of Sharon, Conn.
This was the third year that he was eligible to participate in the Ride for the Roses. He attended the event the first year but missed it last year because he was playing soccer for the Spiders. That was the year he was nominated for the Junior Spirit of Survivorship Award.
This year, he brought back a poster autographed by Armstrong to raffle off to begin meeting his 2006 goal.
In all, cancer survivors and their families and friends raised more than $7 million in 2005-to commemorate Armstrong's seventh Tour de France victory-through the Peloton Project, the foundation's major grassroots fundraising and outreach project.
With his cancer in remission and graduation on the horizon, Bird says he wants to use his business administration major and work for an accounting firm and then get his CPA.
But before that happens, he hopes to be one of 20 people selected to ride next summer with Armstrong in the Tour of Hope, a two-week cycling tour throughout the country advocating for cancer research and providing inspirational stories of cancer survivors.
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