Courage Award: In midst of pandemic, Wake Forest AD helps kids back to sports despite battle with cancer - HighSchoolOT

By Jared Fialko, WRAL Sports reporter

Wake Forest, N.C. — Wake Forest High School athletic director Mike Joyner has been living out his dream for decades.

Joyner is in his eighth year as the athletic director at Wake Forest. He spent one year at Hobbton High School, 16 years at Smithfield-Selma High School, and three years at Selma Middle School before moving to Wake County.

He knew early on in life that teaching and coaching was what he wanted to do.

"I had a love of history and I had a love of sports. How was I going to put those two together? I went to college and majored in history and had a goal of becoming a coach," he said.

Joyner has been a baseball coach for all but two years of his career. He coached baseball at Wake Forest again this season, which ended with one of his players — Kahlil Watson — being drafted in the first round of the Major League Baseball Draft.

"The best part is always the kids. From working with them on their eligibility to actually having some of them in my civics and economics class. You just hope you meant enough in their lives that at some point they look back and say, 'I remember the time you steered me in the right direction and I needed that,'" Joyner said.

All of his baseball duties were in addition to his duties as athletic director. Those duties are countless, but they were even more demanding this year during the coronavirus pandemic. All of that came on top of something else though — a cancer diagnosis.

Last summer, Joyner noticed bruising around his ribs. It didn't get better on its own, so he scheduled an appointment with his doctor, who ordered a CT scan.

"I literally had not been back at the house for 30 minutes when he called and said, 'It looks like you have an enlarged spleen and some lymph nodes that they see are enlarged,'" Joyner recalled. "He said it could mean anything."

A biopsy later confirmed it was Grade 3A Follicular Lymphoma, a type of Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. The specific type of cancer is not curable, but it is typically very responsive to treatment.

"Obviously you think the worst and hope for the best," Joyner said.

A servant to his students and athletes over the years, Joyner continued to put others first. He worried about himself last.

"I don't know that I ever got depressed and worried about what might happen, but at the same time I think I was more worried about the people around me," he said, noting his wife, Cindy, and son, Zach. Of course his Wake Forest family was also a group he worried about.

"I've never been one to want to inconvenience colleagues or my administrators or whatever, when it's my job and I need to do it," said Joyner.

And he did it. In the middle of a pandemic, in the middle of six rounds of chemotherapy, Joyner continued teaching, continued coaching, and continued his duties as athletic director.

"There were some times when I didn't have good days. There were some times when I did not feel well when I got here and would have to leave," he said.

But the treatments have worked. Just a few weeks ago, Joyner got the news that he is cancer-free. A recurrence in the future cannot be ruled out, but Joyner isn't worried about tomorrow — he's focused on today.

"Everyday is payday when you're around these kids," he said.

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Mike Joyner is one of five finalists for the Stuart Scott Courage Award presented by PBS North Carolina. Catch all five Courage Award stories from July 14-20, and find out who the Stuart Scott Courage Award winner is during the HighSchoolOT Honors streaming awards show on July 22 at 7:30 PM. You can watch it exclusively on the HighSchoolOT app, HighSchoolOT.com, or wherever you stream WRAL.

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