All it was, initially, was a very sore right shoulder muscle.

No big deal.

When you’ve whipped your right arm around in windmill fashion thousands of times over a 10-year period like Brianne Prince has, something is bound to give.

The garage, which often served as a backstop, did.

OBSERVER file photo Brianne Hazelton — then Brianne Prince — delivers a pitch during her senior year at Frewsburg.

It couldn’t take the pounding from all those pitches. Dad finally had to put up another garage next to the family’s home in Frewsburg, but it was all in the name of progress. It was all in the name of developing that flawless delivery.

It was all in the name of producing one of the best high school girls softball pitchers the western Southern Tier has ever produced.

So what’s a little physical pain when you realize that it’s just the price you pay if you want to be the best?

But months of it?

Can anyone understand how difficult it is just to sit still when your shoulder is throbbing?

OBSERVER File Photo In this May 1998 file photo, Brianne Prince is joined by Frewsburg softball coach Jon Blanchard, seated right, and her parents, Tim and Kim, as she signs her letter-of-intent to continue her academic and softball career at St. Bonaventure University.

You go to your coach at St. Bonvaventure University, you consult the strength and conditioning coach, you even make an appointment to see a chiropractor.

And, finally, you can wait no longer. A doctor suggests you have an MRI on your right shoulder. Soon after a lump appears near the left collarbone.

Suddenly, words like CAT scan, biopsy and cancer are tossed around in conversation, but you don’t dare show the lasting impact those cold, clinical terms have on your psyche for fear that it will upset other members of your family.

So while the lump near the neck of Tim and Kim Prince’s 18-year-old daughter, Brianne, grows and grows, mom and dad have to try to remain strong for their two younger children.

They take turns going for rides in the car, alone in their grief.

As they steer their vehicle along the roads surrounding their Frewsburg home, they cry their eyes out.

Hodgkin’s disease brings people to tears.

But as the Princes quickly found out, their daughter isn’t about to be drawn into a sea of self-pity.

“I never really thought that it wouldn’t be OK,” Brianne said.

Noted (boyfriend at the time), Chris Gray: “God only does it to people who can handle the situation, and this girl can handle it better than anyone I’ve ever known.”

ı ı ı

The first semester of Brianne’s freshman year at St. Bonaventure was moving along much the way her high school career did at Frewsburg Central.

After an admittedly ugly performance in her collegiate debut, the three-time Post-Journal Player of the Year put together a solid fall campaign.

“She pitched her first game against Niagara and didn’t do too well,” St. Bonaventure coach Mike Threehouse said. “But she told me, ‘Coach,I need to get better,’ When she said that, I said, ‘Young lady, you’re going to be an outstanding softball player.'”

By the end of the fall season, Brianne was 3-1 with a 1.50 earned run average as the No. 2 pitcher on the staff.

“I was really looking forward to spring,” she said.

By October, however, Brianne’s right shoulder began to bother her. It hurt when she drove a car. It hurt when she watched TV. It hurt when she played catch with her friends.

At first, doctors thought it might be the result of a couple of small bulging discs in her neck. Rest was prescribed. No pitching, no weight lifting. Nothing. It seemed to work.

“It did start to feel better,” Brianne said. “It really did.”

But by the time she returned to campus to start the second semester, Brianne couldn’t do her homework without pain. An MRI was done at the end of January, followed by a trip to Buffalo to see a physical therapist.

“(The doctor) said if it didn’t get better in a month, come back and see her then,” Brianne said.

Ultra-sound treatments and massages became part of her every-day routine, but it really didn’t matter. The pain was constant.

“When I was moving, it wasn’t bad, but once I sat down to watch TV, it killed me,” she said. “I just wanted to rub it, it hurt so bad.”

Brianne was scheduled for physical therapy on Feb. 20, a Friday, at Olean Medical Group. When she arrived, her left shoulder — not the right one which had given her so much trouble — was very swollen. Stunned, Prince returned to St. Bonaventure and showed the head trainer.

“He said he’d never seen anything like that before,” Brianne said. “He said if it got bigger I would have to go to the emergency room right away.”

By Sunday, the growth had spread and her doctor ordered a CAT scan. The procedure was supposed to be done on Thursday, Feb. 25, but when Brianne had trouble breathing on Tuesday, Feb. 23, they did the scan right away.

Tim and Kim Prince, at home in Frewsburg, knew their daughter was having a CAT scan done that day, so Kim called the doctor in Olean to get a report.

“I’m going to have her see an oncologist,” Kim recalled the physician telling her.

To Kim, a medical assistant for a Jamestown physician, an oncologist meant only one thing: cancer.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the Princes had to wait a week to get word on the biopsy report.

Hodgkin’s or non-Hodgkin’s?

“Was she going to live or was she going to die?” Kim said. How’s that for a $64,000 question?

“It was hard. We cried a lot the first week, Kim said. “We took turns driving around because we decided we weren’t going to cry in front of the kids (who also include brother, Bill, and sister, Beth). We couldn’t quit being parents.”

Added Tim: “To me, it didn’t really sink in until I saw the CAT scan. It was like somebody took a volleyball and shoved it down her chest.”

“If you see a normal chest X-ray,” Kim said, “the majority of it is opaque. When we looked at Brianne’s chest X-ray, the whole thing was a solid, white color.”

The mass filled two-thirds of her chest cavity.

“The reason she was having all the trouble breathing was because (the tumor) was starting to press down on one of her main arteries, the vena cava,” Kim said. “It wouldn’t have been long before she got even sicker.”

The wait for the biopsy report was excruciating.

“I felt like crawling into a hole,” Tim said. “My wife kept us together. Brianne’s attitude was better, so it made me feel better even though I kind of knew it wasn’t going to be good news.”

Who could blame him? Lymphomas aren’t cured with antibiotics. Sometimes lymphomas aren’t cured at all.

Added to the simmering mix, was the fact that Tim and Billy, one of the state’s top high school wrestlers at 171 pounds, were getting ready for the Section VI state qualifier. As the Bears’ coach, it was Tim’s job to get his son prepared for the biggest meet of the year.

“You want to go around and be all doom and gloom, but you can’t,” Kim said, “not with Billy’s special week. We had to keep it together and be supportive for him. We wanted him to have a good week and not think about his sister and what was going on. Of course, that was impossible.”

In fact, Brianne’s illness was becoming debilitating to Billy, too. Practices that week were, in his dad’s words, “terrible.”

“Billy wanted to withdraw,” Tim said.

But after much thought, he decided it was best if he wrestled in an effort to make a third straight trip to Syracuse.

“I told myself I can’t let her down,” Billy said.

He didn’t.

In a storybook ending, when he won the state qualifier he jumped to his feet and pointed to Brianne, who had been cheering him on from the stands.

“We were all crying,” Kim said.

One week later, Billy captured the 171-pound state championship, capping an emotional roller-coaster ride for the Princes.

By that time, they’d learned the results of Brianne’s biopsy. It was Hodgkin’s.

“The doctor came out after the biopsy and said, ‘I’ve got good news,'” Tim recalled.

Good news?

Winning the lottery is good news. Earning that long-awaited promotion is good news.

But Hodgkin’s disease?

“I just wanted to punch him,” Tim said.

Brianne, the family optimist, took it in stride.

“She thought it wasn’t a big deal,” Tim said.

Added Threehouse: “I went to the hospital after I heard she was admitted. When I walked into the room, she was sitting up in bed smiling. She said, “They’ve told me I have Hodgkin’s disease, but it’s the good kind. They can cure it.’ She was more worried about playing softball.”

To this day, Brianne has yet to shed a tear.

“It’s never been, ‘Why me?'” Kim said. “I’ve never, ever seen that attitude from her.”

Gray, a NJCAA football All-American at Alfred State and a decorated athlete during his days at Frewsburg Central, has been touched by the way his girlfriend has handled herself in the last six months.

“She’s picked me up every time,” he said. I want to be strong for her, but she’s a trooper. I know I drive her crazy because I call her three times a day.”

In a sign of love and support, Gray has shaved his head as Brianne has lost all of her hair because of chemotherapy, which she must undergo every other Monday. The treatments will continue through August, followed by a month of radiation.

“This would be considered bigger than any bowl game or any state championship in baseball that I’ve been involved in,” said Gray, who has earned a Division I football scholarship at the University at Buffalo. “I’ve been with her for four years and the Prince family has had open arms for me. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for this family.”

So imagine Gray’s reaction when he noticed a couple people staring at Brianne — sans hair — at the Chautauqua Mall.

“This guy walked by and he looked and turned back,” Gray recalled. “For some reason it caught my eye and he mentioned something to his friend. I looked at them and they looked at me and I said, ‘Do you guys have a problem?’ They just kept walking away. It’s pretty bad that people don’t understand and think it’s funny.”

Ironically, it’s Brianne who seems to have a perpetual smile on her face.

And it’s that positive attitude that has rubbed off on virtually everybody she comes into contact with. At school, where she was granted a medical hardship so she’ll have a fifth year of eligibility, has become the leader among the freshmen on the softball team. When she’s been hospitalized, flowers, cards (numbering close to 100) and friends have filled the room.

“That surprised me that she could make a difference with other girls her age so soon,” Kim said.

In fact, Brianne’s impact in such short order has impressed everyone around her.

“It’s hard for me to even put it into words,’ said Steve Mest, St. Bonaventure’s sports information director. “So many kids don’t appreciate what they’ve got and here’s Brianne in this situation with nothing but a positive outlook. … Her attitude is just outstanding.”

St. Bonaventure held a home run derby Saturday to help pay Brianne’s medical expenses. Thanks to donations from the Student Government and this weekend’s 64-team softball tournament, Threehouse said more than $1,000 has already been raised.

“The school has just been fantastic,” Tim said. “I couldn’t ask for more from a coach or a school.”

“I always thought that most colleges would have that we-don’t-care attitude,” Kim said.

But St. Bonaventure cares, Frewsburg cares Gray’s friends in Alfred care and so do many people who have never even met the young woman with the rocket arm and the ready smile.

“I’ve learned that softball isn’t the most important thing in my life,” Brianne said. “I thought it was, but now I realize how much people care about me, how my family cares and that my family is more important than softball.”

With the interview just about over, Brianne looked at her watch, looked across the table at Gray and said: “We’ve got to go.”

The University at Buffalo’s annual Blue-White spring football game would be starting in 90 minutes. As a new recruit of the Bulls, Gray wasn’t about to miss it and neither was Brianne.

As they got ready to leave, the sun was shining outside and the sky was royal blue.

It was a beautiful day for a game.