Southern Miss Head Women’s Basketball Coach Diagnosed with Cancer

Battling and overcoming adversity is something every coach demands of his or her players. Southern Miss head women’s basketball coach Joye Lee-McNelis is no different except now she’ll be putting all those lessons to the test in her own life.
A week ago today, McNelis started feeling chest discomfort during practice. The following day she was diagnosed with adenocarcinoma. Tests revealed a small mass in the upper left lobe of her lung, cancer, but the good news is doctors caught it early.
Still, a scary situation for the Lady Eagle family to which McNelis responded in part: “I am really proud of how this team has overachieved this year and how they’d fought extremely hard. In return, I will have the same fight as I face this adversity over the next few weeks.”
Here’s what one of her former players and now assistant coach Pauline Love had to say about McNelis and her fight. “She talked to the girls, talked to the staff and she came in. And she’s like my mom, so I just didn’t know how I was going to handle it. So when she first came in and she told us the story, cause the week prior to that we were in Western Kentucky and she had this halftime speech saying when your back is against the wall you’ve got to fight. And when she started off with that, and she just said I’ve got to fight. And I got really, really emotional. The first time she told me I had to walk out cause I had to gather myself, it’s like finding out your mom has cancer because she raised me. It’s a very emotional situation.”
Love tells News 25 that she expects to see McNelis back on the sidelines before the Conference USA tournament. In the meantime, Kiley Hill will serve as head coach of the Lady Eagles.