Cancer stole his mom and brothers. Then it came for him. How CR South coach battled back

HOLLAND — TJ Farrell has already experienced some crushing blows.

Farrell, the junior varsity baseball coach at Council Rock South, lost his only two siblings to cancer when his brothers were just 9 and 21, as well as his mother to the disease at the age of 40.

And Farrell has had cancer twice, most recently completing chemotherapy for colon cancer in mid-December.

But Farrell, whose only living immediate family member is 61-year-old father Tom, doesn't go through life lamenting his misfortune.

"I never want anyone to know the hardships I went through by the way I act," Farrell said. "I try to smile and help somebody else smile every day."

It's working.

"He's such a positive person," said CR South senior catcher Tyler Harper. "Even when he was going through stuff at the hospital, he's somebody you love to be around at all times."

CR South JV baseball coach's family decimated by cancer

Now 42, Farrell was a senior at George Washington High School when youngest brother Michael died of brain cancer in 1999 at the age of 9. Mother Michelle died of pancreatic and cervical cancer in 2003 at 40 after surviving breast cancer. Brother Andrew, who was 14 months younger than him and Farrell called "like my best friend," died of leukemia in 2004 at 21.

"All that by the time I was 22," Farrell said.

Cancer journey for Council Rock South's TJ Farrell

Farrell began having stomach pain in November 2022. He assumed it was gastritis and downplayed the situation until the pain became heavy following a March 13, 2023, non-league game against Archbishop Ryan.

Reluctant to go to the St. Mary Medical Center emergency room because he didn't have health insurance at the time (he does now), Farrell eventually learned that a CT scan showed he had a mass on his colon.

Admitted to the hospital, he underwent a colostomy four days later and had an ostomy bag temporarily inserted. He was discharged one week later, though he was still experiencing discomfort and "didn't feel right."

Nine hours later, Farrell was in so much pain that he called 911 and went by ambulance back to St. Mary's on March 22, 2023. A CT scan indicated the ostomy bag was leaking into his blood stream.

Dr. Alfred Trang of St. Mary's performed surgery two days later to remove a large section of Farrell's colon, including the mass, reattached the bowel and removed his gallbladder, which had become gangrenous.

"It was supposed to be a four- or five-hour surgery and it turned into a 10-hour surgery," Farrell said. "Dr. Trang ended up saving my life."

Farrell was discharged June 2 after a biopsy showed he had colon cancer. Oncologist Dr. Krista Isaac from St. Mary's determined he needed six months of chemotherapy, which began with 10 pills (five in the morning, five in the evening) for two weeks, plus a blood infusion every three weeks for three to four hours.

Chemo ended the week before Christmas and all scans have come back clear for the past 3½ months, though five years is typically the window for a high-risk patient to be declared cancer-free.

Testing cancer genes gives scary result

While getting chemo, Farrell decided to have his genes tested, which indicated he had a cancer gene called Li-Fraumeni Syndrome (LFS). It's a rare hereditary disorder that increases the chances you and your family members wind up with cancer. Females with LFS at birth have a nearly 100 percent chance of developing breast cancer.

Though the test wasn't available when his brothers and mom endured cancer, perhaps his mother had LFS, too, since Farrell's dad is cancer-free and numerous family members on her side encountered the disease.

"Deep down, when I went into hospital that (day in March 2023), I kind of knew my fate already," Farrell said. "I knew my time with cancer was coming."

Baseball helps coach get through family tragedies

CR South's Greg Paprocki hired Farrell as the Golden Hawks' freshman coach in 2020-21 when Paprocki took over as the Golden Hawks' head coach, then promoted Farrell to JV coach two seasons ago.

It was baseball that inspired Farrell, whose full-time job is coaching the Baseball U Philadelphia 15/16U team, as he recovered.

While he missed CR South's final six games of 2023 and couldn't coach the Baseball U 15/16U national team at a weeklong June tournament in Georgia, Farrell returned for a late-June tourney at Diamond Nation in Flemington, N.J.

"Besides my family and fighting for the ones that I lost previously to cancer, my kids and the program were everything," Farrell said. "When I was going through chemotherapy, they were my motivation to get up when I didn't feel like getting up. … I don't have kids of my own. When somebody asks me, I tell them I have about 110 (the number of players he's coached in recent years). A coach is a coach for life."

Paprocki created a GoFundMe to defray Farrell's medical costs and the mother of a Baseball U player put together a Dinger Derby fundraiser at the Holland Little League facility in which participants paid $25 and hit as many home runs as possible.

"Without coach Pap, none of this is possible," Farrell said. "He's been my guy since Day One. He took a chance on me. … The community of Council Rock and Baseball U meant the world to me and has been absolutely incredible."

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Paprocki believes the word "incredible" applies to Farrell, who had a brain tumor at 14 that proved to be benign.

"TJ used baseball as his crutch — it's his passion," Paprocki said. "When things were at their worst last year, he always would be willing to talk baseball or get to the field when he could."

Farrell back coaching baseball at CR South, Baseball U

Farrell is thoroughly enjoying his second season as the Golden Hawks' JV coach. The players he coached to the season-ending freshman tournament championship are now varsity seniors and clearly haven't forgotten him.

"Everything we do at South is for him," said senior shortstop Sam Serpiello. "We always want to play for him."

Having cancer and enduring his brothers' and mother's cancer ordeals have given Farrell plenty of perspective as he tries to help the CR South JV win games and develop productive young men along the way.

"Life, much like a baseball game, presents a mix of highs and lows," Paprocki said. "It's how we handle those lows that defines us. TJ's resilience in the face of adversity sets a great example for the people around him."

Tom Moore: tmoore@couriertimes.com; @TomMoorePhilly is a sports columnist forPhillyBurbs.com. Support our journalism with a subscription.