Of his campus visit, made when he was 14 (it was the first time
anyone in his family had seen Notre Dame), he says simply, “It
was incredible. The campus was beautiful, but what I didn’t
realize, what really hit me was the fact that everybody was just
incredibly, super nice.”
Weiss’s and Collins’s stories are eerily similar
to that of Kerri Castello from Mobile, Alabama, an honor student
and former captain of her high school volleyball team. Five days
into her junior year of high school she was diagnosed with bone
cancer in her shoulder. Soon thereafter she began a long series
of treatments at Saint Jude Children’s Research Hospital
in Memphis.
Like Weiss and Collins, she focused on keeping up with her studies
as she battled cancer, knowing how competitive Notre Dame admissions
have become (in each of the last two years the University has
turned away more than 200 high school valedictorians). Like Collins,
she had no family connection to Notre Dame, had never set foot
on campus. But she was a committed Catholic, spiritual director
of the youth council at her church, and liked what she read about
the retreats. She was thinking about studying theology.
Qualifying for admission turned out to be no problem. The first
patient at Saint Jude’s ever to take the ACT while undergoing
chemotherapy, she scored 32 out of a possible 36, putting her
in the 99th percentile of college-bound students. An early-decision
applicant to the University, she was designated a Notre Dame Scholar,
meaning she rated among the top 20 percent of all admitted students.
Her essay and a letter from her high school described what she
was going through with her illness, and the information eventually
reached Dan Saracino ’69, ’75M.A., Notre Dame’s
chief of admissions. Saracino contacted her family and school
and learned that Kerri’s condition was deteriorating. Worried
that she might not live to read her acceptance letter, he expedited
the admissions process and overnight-mailed her the letter December
1 (about 10 days ahead of the normal schedule) along with a Notre
Dame sweatshirt.
The admissions chief would stay in touch with the young woman
and her family as she continued to battle the cancer throughout
the winter months and in the spring decided to bring them to campus.
Kerri was too ill to travel by commercial plane, so Saracino
asked alumnus and benefactor Jerry Hank ’51 to fly her and
her family up on his private jet. Hank didn’t hesitate to
put the plane at their disposal, and Kerri came to campus with
her parents and brother in March of this year. In addition to
touring campus, they met with new football coach Ty Willingham
and with Father Hesburgh, who said a special Mass in the chapel
adjacent to his office in the library. She sat in on a theology
class and stayed a night in Farley Hall with a student she knew
from Mobile.
Kerri Castello’s story doesn’t end like those of
Kurt Weiss and Joe Collins. She rallied following her visit and
soon thereafter made a pilgrimage to the Grotto of Saint Bernadette
in Lourdes, France (on which Notre Dame’s Grotto is modeled).
But her condition rapidly declined, and on April 30 she died at
home.
“My memory will always be her on a golf cart going [around
campus] as fast as she could,” says Saracino, who spoke
at her memorial Mass in Mobile. “Her comment to Ty and me
was that ‘I’m not afraid of dying. I’m just
afraid of not living.’ She said there’s a difference.”
Lora Castello says her daughter always believed she would beat
the illness.
“You hear these stories about people who die, who just go
willingly. She felt she had too much to live for and the fact
that she’d been accepted to Notre Dame was the major reason
she felt that way,” her mother says. “I can’t
say that Kerri even in her last words was giving up. It was still
‘I’m waiting for my miracle.’ I think Notre
Dame had a lot to do with that.”
As it turned out, Kerri Castello’s association with the
Notre Dame family didn’t end with her death. The day before
she died she decided to donate her body to science in hopes of
helping with the search for a cure. Mobile opthalmologist Richard
Duffey ’79 had treated Lora Castello for an eye injury suffered
in a chemical explosion years earlier, and he was friends with
the orthopedic surgeon who first diagnosed Kerri’s cancer.
Duffey regularly performs corneal transplants, and three days
after Kerri’s funeral he received a fax with information
on the donor of a pair of corneas that had just become available.
They were from an18-year-old who had died of osteocarcoma (bone
cancer) — Kerri. He successfully transplanted one of the
corneas; the second went to a colleague in Birmingham who had
an emergency. That transplant also was successful.
Duffey and other members of the Notre Dame Club of Mobile are
raising money to establish a memorial scholarship in Kerri’s
name to benefit students admitted to Notre Dame from the Mobile
area. To contribute or learn more, write to Duffey at 2880 Dauphin
Street Mobile, AL 36606, phone 251-470-8928, fax 251-470-8924
or e-mail duffey@duffeylaser.com.
Kerri Castello’s story may remind many Notre Dame followers
of Scott Delgadillo. The 14-year-old from San Diego inspired the
Irish football team and fans two years ago when he spoke at the
pep rally before a home game against Purdue. Like Weiss, he’d
been granted a visit to campus by Make-A-Wish. In his case, he
was battling leukemia.
