ESPN’s Smith picks up right where she left off

The opportunity to come to Honolulu and report Marcus Mariota’s NFL Draft saga is, as might be imagined, a much-coveted assignment around ESPN.

But to Shelley Smith, the reporter chosen, the trip comes with a deeper, more personal meaning.

The last time she interviewed Mariota, just before the December Heisman Trophy announcement, he showed up in a University of Oregon shirt with a pink "O" in recognition of the battles with breast cancer being waged by Smith and an Oregon sportswriter.

"I can’t tell you how much that meant to me at the time," said Smith, who had been diagnosed at stage 2 of the disease. "How much it still means to me."

Her once flowing red hair has been replaced by a shiny pate, but she says she is cancer free and draft week will be a celebration of sorts for Smith and Mariota, marking his passage to the pros and her return to TV after more than a three-month absence.

With chemotherapy having ended two weeks ago and radiation scheduled to begin next month, "I wasn’t planning on coming back yet," Smith said. "But ESPN called and said, ‘Your name has come up (for the assignment) and you’ve done a lot with Marcus since his first game. …’"

Smith, 56, an award-winning newspaper and TV reporter, said, "ESPN has been marvelous to give me this assignment, one which everybody and their brother wanted, especially those in the cold-weather states. But, for me, it is a great assignment because it is Mariota and I have just come to admire him so much because of the way he handles himself. I’m really excited to have this be my first assignment back."

For Smith, it is a triumph she hardly dared imagine after her first chemotherapy session. Back then, "I had to not only go through chemo, but I had to get an IV of antibiotics because (where they had taken out) my lymph nodes had gotten infected. I had a port (implanted) and an armpit of gauze and cotton and I had gotten the flu. I remember walking into my oncologist’s office and just breaking down and sobbing. I had only gone through the first (chemotherapy) treatment. "I said, ‘I just suck.’ I didn’t know if I could do the rest.

"My doctor said, ‘No, this is just like throwing an interception in the first quarter’ (and) I thought, ‘I’m smart enough that you don’t have to put everything in sports analogies,’ but it did make me feel better."

In time she would find hope in that her battle, unlike that of her late colleague Stuart Scott, who died in January of cancer at age 49, could be won. "I knew that I had a good chance of beating this and I wanted to celebrate. I had a fight and I was ready to fight," Smith said. 

Her baldness, which she describes as an "Uncle Fester or Yul Brynner" look, is often forgotten about until she catches a glimpse in a mirror or feels the stares of others. "I went to get my nails done and people just stared, so I finally said, ‘I’m done with chemo, I have breast cancer, but I’m going to beat it.’  

People smiled and said, ‘Good luck and God bless.’  I don’t want to say it has been a wonderful experience, but it is great to know how people can help other people. And people have certainly helped me."

In the return to TV, she hopes to return the favor, inspiring others in their battles. When she told ESPN her return would be sans hair, "they said, ‘we welcome your shaved head,’ " Smith said. "So I said, ‘God bless you. You understand what I’m trying to do here.’ "

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com.