By By Kirby Morrison, News Staff

When women’s basketball head coach Daynia La-Force Mann heard that assistant coach Bill Carpenter was diagnosed with esophageal cancer last month, she decided her team would ensure he was not alone in the battle.
‘We’re going to honor [Carpenter] and support him by bringing out the awareness that we, too, are affected by this disease,’ La-Force Mann said. ‘We’re fighting for the cause just as much as people are fighting who are on the surgery table that are afflicted with this disease. We’re doing our part to fight as well.’
To help increase awareness about the disease, the women’s basketball team participated in the Sixth Annual Brian J. Honan 5k Walk/Run Sunday and dedicated the 2009-10 season to Carpenter.
The Brian J. Honan 5k Walk/Run commemorates Brian Honan, a former Boston City Councilor and Allston native who died of cancer in 2002. Honan was a star basketball player at Saint Columbkille’s High School in Brighton, and devoted much of his life to enhancing the Allston/Brighton community through developing affordable housing. According to the event’s website, brianhonan.org, money raised during the event will benefit scholarship funds of the Allston Board of Trade and the Brighton Board of Trade in addition to the Brian Honan Family Charitable Fund.
The Huskies have volunteered at the event in past years by handing out refreshments and helping fill out paperwork. This year the team decided to participate by walking in honor of Carpenter for his battle with esophageal cancer, La-Force Mann said. In addition, the team has adopted one of Carpenter’s favorite slogans for this season: ‘Winners Just Respond.’
La-Force Mann said the motto means ‘just taking on adversity head-on and just doing what is right, coming together as a team, and just getting the job done.
‘You don’t complain, you don’t argue, you just do what winners do,’ she said. ‘And winners would always want to do what is right and do what is best for the team. And if that means sacrificing themselves, they just do it.’
Senior forward Kendra Walton said the team has a responsibility to try to win games despite adversity.
‘We can do it,’ Walton said. ‘That’s what [Carpenter] wants us to do. We don’t want to be like we were last year, we want to get better. Just have people always making sure we are positive and make sure nobody is getting down on themselves.’
Carpenter, who assisted in recruiting and individual skill instruction, will miss the entire season as he prepares for treatment and surgery for the cancer, which has not spread from his esophagus. La-Force Mann and Walton both said Carpenter’s presence will be missed greatly throughout the year.
‘He was one of the most interactive coaches,’ said Walton. ‘We could joke with him and he used to text us all the time. I try to text him now.’
‘[Carpenter] and I had worked at Long Island University several years ago and we brought that program from the bottom of the Northeastern Conference to a championship team in 2001. So he was very familiar with what it was going to take to do a similar thing here. Not having him around to help me complete this dream here is obviously going to be tough for me this year.’
This Saturday, the Huskies will be volunteering at the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. The team will be wearing pink T-shirts which will read ‘In Support for the Cure of Esophageal Cancer’ on the front and ‘Coach Carpenter Northeastern University’ on the back.
The squad will also participate in Think Pink Week, held in February, in which they will invite cancer survivors to home games to be honored at halftime.