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By Joseph Cress, January 9, 2005

Last updated: Sunday, January 9, 2005 10:39 AM EST

It was the kind of news anyone would find hard to tackle, including a wide receiver for the Penn State Nittany Lions.

Scott Shirley was sitting in a waiting room at Johns Hopkins University hospital when the doctor reported the grim prognosis:

"I'll be perfectly honest ... there is nothing we can do."

For the college junior, the words only added to the shock and panic of learning his father Donald once again had kidney cancer.

"Coming from a source like that ... among the best of the best ... it hits you like a ton of bricks," Shirley recalled.

He can still remember that painful moment in the fall of 2002 when hope was a hard ball to catch on the gridiron of life and death.

Yet from this pain came a desire to build awareness and raise money for research into so-called "orphan diseases."

A 1999 graduate of East Pennsboro High School, Shirley hopes to build on the success of the Lift for Life program first developed by his college football team.

His goal is to develop it into a "template" other universities and high schools can use to benefit under-funded, under-recognized charities.

Back in 2002, Scott and his teammates were getting ready to play Iowa State when his mother Joyce called with the bad news.

The cancer that first flared up in 1993 was back with a vengeance and the situation looked bleak for Donald Shirley, an English teacher and varsity baseball coach at Mechanicsburg Area Senior High School.

"She was really shook up," Scott recalled Thursday, taking a short break from packing up his life in State College for the move to Washington D.C.

Last month, Scott graduated with a master's degree in civil engineering and has landed a job with Clark Construction Co., a major contractor.

When his father was first diagnosed, Scott was in elementary school and did not fully appreciate the gravity of the situation even as Donald underwent surgery to have his right kidney removed.

That second time around, Scott knew it was deadly serious and yearned to somehow do something to help his father.

When a Harrisburg doctor told the Shirley family nothing could be done, they went to Johns Hopkins seeking a second opinion.

When that turned grim, they went to the Kidney Cancer Association and received an education with a dose of harsh reality.

"Kidney cancer is an orphan disease," Scott Shirley explained.

Since it only afflicts 31,000 Americans a year, the government does not consider it a high priority for federal grants while the drug companies view it as a poor investment in research dollars.

Further, the success rate for the only approved treatment is very low and only 20 percent of patients with advanced kidney cancer survive past five years, Scott said.

When he told his friends the bad news, fellow player Damone Jones suggested the football team rally behind the cause and do something about it.

An idea soon emerged to turn a friendly competition at the end of summer conditioning into a public fund-raising event to draw attention to the plight of kidney cancer.

Every Fourth of July, the Nittany Lions hold a lifting challenge to stretch the football players to the max with tests of strength and endurance.

"We saw it as an opportunity to use it as a platform to raise awareness," Scott said. "The team definitely supported the idea. Three other guys had fathers with kidney cancer.

"As student athletes, we have a spotlight that can be bad or good," Scott added. "We have a social responsibility. If you can, you should make a difference."

So the players took their idea to head coach Joe Paterno who gave his blessing.

In July 2003, the first Lift for Life challenge raised $13,000 for kidney cancer research. The second year, donations came in around $38,000, Donald Shirley said.

Aside from helping a worthy cause, Lift for Life is providing a chance for Penn State athletes who major in marketing and finance to apply classroom lessons to a real-world situation.

"It is not just about helping my dad," Scott said. "It is for the greater good."

Now Scott wants to develop Lift for Life into a program that can be replicated on other campuses not just to benefit kidney cancer research, but any "underdog" charity a community believes in.

To promote Lift for Life, Scott plans to travel to Florida next month to attend the National Consortium of Academics and Sports, an annual conference attended by college athletic directors.

"This has really taken off," Donald Shirley said. "I am very honored by it."

Knowing his son was key to developing Lift for Life helped to boost his will to fight this reoccurrence of kidney cancer, which also spread to his lungs.

In 2003, doctors in Pittsburgh removed half of his left lung and a tumor the size of a softball from his abdomen, Donald Shirley said. He travels there every three months for chest X-rays and a CT-scan to monitor the disease.

"It's always in the back of your mind that it can come back," Donald said, adding his wife and two other children are now volunteers with Lift for Life.

Donald added it is really indescribable the amount of effort his son has put into Lift for Life considering his heavy academic load and obligations to the team.

Among those who have helped Scott Shirley are Bryan Scott, now a second-season defensive back with the Atlanta Falcons.