On Sunday I got an email from Poly girls’ cross country coach Nate Bershtel—not much of a surprise, since Nate emails me almost every week to let me know how Moore League cross country runners (not just the girls he coaches, either) are doing at their weekend meets.  This email, though, didn’t contain the familiar spreadsheet breakdown of how athletes from around the city were faring—this email was sent to share a story with me, the exact kind of story we love to share with our readers.

This is a sports site, and as such, most of what we do is write about something we just watched—a football game, a girls’ volleyball match (occasionally even a cross country meet).  But, as our feature writer Brian Baiotto once pointed out to me, even the most dedicated student-athlete only spends about a third of their time practicing or playing a sport.  What they do with the rest of their life is what shapes them into who they are, and who they are on the playing field as well.

It doesn’t take more than a glance at the photos below to know what kind of a competitor Tyler Noesen is.  Noesen graduated from Poly in 1999, after helping lead the Poly cross country program to three consecutive team CIF titles; he also ran track, played a little soccer, and was a near-4.0 student.  After graduation, he attended Cal, where he was on the Golden Bears’ XC and track teams, and earned Academic All-American honors. 

Three years ago, while playing soccer, he felt a pain in his abdomen.  He visited his doctor, where they found a grapefruit-sized cyst, that had already metastasized.  Noesen was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest (and least-researched) forms of cancer.  The average life expectancy for people suffering from PC is between six months and a year, which is how long Noesen was told he had to live.

Last weekend, joined by a large supporting cast known as Team Tyler, Noesen completed the 5K at the LA Cancer Challenge.  Over three years after his diagnosis, he completed a 5K—and was the only person with pancreatic cancer to do so that day.  With that kind of drive, and determination, it’s no wonder he’s joined by so many friends, as the Poly boys’ and girls’ cross country teams ran with him, along with the Jackrabbit coaches, and some of Noesen’s teammates from Cal.  With Noesen’s record and that supporting cast, it’s also no surprise to hear that it was the fourth consecutive title for Team Tyler—especially given that Shannon Rowbury, a US Olympian, is among those supporting the effort.

The team also contributed over $5,000 to the over $500,000 raised by the event—money that’s especially crucial for PC patients, as doctors say that PC research is about as well-funded as breast cancer was in the 1930s.  (As an aside, if you’d like to donate to PC research, this link will take you to the Donations page of the Hirshberg Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research, the organization that put on this year’s LA Cancer Challenge).

Hopefully the story and the pictures (taken by Becky Bershtel) will serve not just as an inspirational moment in your day, and not just as a testament to the close-knit family atmosphere that makes cross country so unique in prep athletics; hopefully it will also serve as a reminder that sports, which we dedicate so much of our time to here, are not just a vehicle for kids to get scholarships, or attain an ephemeral glory.  Incredible as those are, sport can be even more; the most dedicated athlete may only spend a third of their life practicing their passion, but the right kind of athlete enriches the rest of that life beyond measure.  It’s obvious that Tyler Noesen has lived—and continues to live—his life in that way.  And we couldn’t be happier to be able to tell you about it.

Photos by Becky Bershtel

Start of the race:

Noesen finishing the race:

With the Poly boys’ and girls’ XC teams, and Rowbury:

With the Poly girls’ XC runners: