York Daily Record
Student athletes in York, Pa., have created a campaign to support York Daily Record sports reporter Steve Navaroli, who’s battling throat cancer.
Navaroli has covered two generations of swimmers and is a regular fixture at York Suburban High School swim meets, his colleague Jim Seip reports. When students there learned he had cancer, they decided to help.
Swimmers Emily Schmittle and Will Massey created “Navaroli Nation” T-shirts that they’re selling to help Navaroli pay his medical bills. They’ve sold more than 70 T-shirts so far and are asking others in the community to “join the nation.” They also created a Facebook page where people can place orders.
Students told Seip what a good reporter Navaroli is, and said it’s a “cool thing” to be interviewed by him.
“He was the first person that ever interviewed me,” Schmittle said. “I was really nervous, and he made me not so nervous.”
Seip talked with Navaroli — who’s entering his last week of treatment — about his reaction to the campaign:
“It’s very humbling,” Navaroli said earlier this week, his voice low and gravelly from five weeks of radiation and chemotherapy. “I think back to myself in high school. I never had the gumption to do something like they’re doing for me. And to think, they’re doing all this for me? It floors me.”
