Choosing the Joyous Path

Collegiate’s varsity boys lacrosse team had just defeated St. Stephen’s-St. Agnes 9-8 at home on Tuesday, April 18, 2017, and Coach Andrew Stanley’s guys were ecstatic about their victory over the perennial VISAA power.

 

Their excitement was tempered, though, by the somber awareness that Alex Peavey, one of Stanley’s assistants and the school’s mindfulness guru, had recently been diagnosed at 39 years old with Stage 4 prostate cancer and was waging the fight of his life.

 

Though Peavey’s coaching focus had been basketball, he had given heart and soul to lacrosse, and the team and his colleagues looked to him for leadership, guidance, Yoda-like wisdom, and mentorship. Now, through no fault of his, he was absent in body but not in spirit and facing an uncertain future.

 

Following the postgame handshakes, the Cougars returned to the west end of the Grover Jones Field as Stanley huddled briefly with his staff. Then, as he walked over to address his team, two text messages appeared on his phone in rapid succession.

 

The first read “Next Up Wednesday.” It was a reminder to savor the win but use it as a springboard to greater achievement. The second read, “Fight with a smile because you love what you’re doing, and good things will happen.” The “sender” of both was Alex Peavey.

 

“That’s Alex, coaching and teaching every chance he gets,” said Stanley, now Collegiate’s Director of Athletics. “He immediately set the tone. He captured that group. What he was able to do was very succinctly package what he had been trying to convey his whole career.”

 

At the moment Stanley read Peavey’s words to his team, “Fight & Smile” entered the collective Collegiate consciousness.

 

The Sharpie-inscribed message began to appear on shoes, on tape affixed to helmets, sticks, and other athletic gear, and on wristbands and clothing. It became a rallying cry for everyone, the endeavor notwithstanding, who bought into the notion that fierce competitive spirit and joy are in no way contradictory in an athletic context.

 

“It was a very organic, honest, natural way to capture what coaching at its core should be,” Stanley said. “There’s no question that the coaches who built Collegiate’s program expected the most from their athletes and found meaning in coaching because they knew that challenges were good for them. Fight & Smile is what we’ve all tried to convey. We’ve always cared about competing from a place of love, passion, and joy while testing our limits and growing from the experience.”  

 

Fight & Smile was a fundamental precept of the Peavey Project, a non-profit co-founded three years ago by Jake McDonald and Collin McConaghy, who as highly trained, certified instructors teach mindfulness to teams, businesses entities, and community organizations.

 

“Fight & Smile is our tagline because they’re our controllables,” said McConaghy, Collegiate’s head varsity football coach. “Every day, we get to control our effort, our attitude, and our responses. We want to give [each endeavor] everything we have and do it with enjoyment, enthusiasm, and love because that’s when we normally perform our best.”

 

There’s a much bigger picture, of course.

 

“Sports are a great arena to put this philosophy into practice, but it extends well beyond the playing field,” McDonald said. “It’s the ability to empty every ounce of yourself into a purpose that’s greater than you. That’s what it means to fight. It’s not to beat someone up. It’s not you versus somebody else. It’s tapping into everything within you and emptying it into the demands of the situation with purpose and joy. If you make that a practice, you’re more resilient and healthier so you can be in greater service to others. That’s Alex. He has the ability to help people be their best for others. Fight & Smile allows that to come to life.”

 

Peavey began the 2017 lacrosse season on the field but stepped back when his health became an issue and entered the VCU Medical Center on Friday, March 17. He learned quickly that his prognosis was dire and underwent three surgeries early the following week to stabilize his condition.

 

A life odyssey that would test his limits and reveal his character had begun.

 

He was discharged March 24 and was at home, heavily medicated and bedridden but following the Cougars on social media the afternoon they played SSSA.

 

“I’d had this scare where, multiple times, it was literally, Can we get you to tomorrow?” Peavey said. “What I found was this deep-seated clarity of everything being about the people you’re surrounded by, whether that’s your family, your teammates, or whoever happens to be with you in a hospital room.

 

“I wanted to be with the team, but I was so happy for them from afar. I don’t fully recall sending the message. I do remember the sentiment of whether it’s me in the hospital or them playing their toughest opponent, it’s about the fight. If you love what you’re fighting for and who you’re fighting with, then the fight can be joyous. For me, it was life or death. For them, it was a life experience of beating a top team.”

 

He cited a quotation attributed to the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzche: “He who has a Why to live can bear almost any How.”

 

“To me, Fight & Smile is the answer to How,” Peavey said. “From the standpoint of the lacrosse team and the standpoint of what I was experiencing, it was the acknowledgment of loving what the fight is for and loving who you’re fighting with. With every team I’d been part of, the priority has been the person to your left and to your right. That becomes your Why, so when you’re having a bad day, get outside of your own skin by doing what you can for the person next to you. The foundational element of every team I’ve been on is that it’s not about you.”

 

As Peavey’s journey continues, he travels it with uncommon courage and grace.

 

“Cancer is all over my body, but fighting cancer is not about me,” he said. “It’s about the opportunity to live another day with my wife, my kids, my family, and my friends. It becomes achievable the moment I don’t make it about me, which is an interesting counterintuitive approach to a problem which is very specifically about me. When you apply [that mindset] to a team, it creates an unbelievable momentum that lifts the whole entity.”

 

There’s more grist for the mill, of course, as he approaches year eight since his diagnosis.

 

“The important thing is communicating that Fight & Smile is not false positivity,” Peavey said. “It doesn’t mean only good things happen. It’s acknowledging that there are tears, there are hard days, there are frustrations. To smile in the face of adversity doesn’t mean that I’m denying the adversity. It means that I’m choosing a path through it that’s joyous.

 

“You’re allowed to be sad. You’re just not allowed to stay there. There’s a phrase that I love from Thich Nhat Hanh: ‘No mud, no lotus.’ The mud is the fight. The lotus is the smile. Sometimes, it takes someone else to pull us out of that. We have to go through the emotional part to get to the smile part.”

~Weldon Bradshaw

 

Editor’s Note: In This Moment, a documentary produced by Collegiate alum Jess Speight, intimately captures Alex Peavey’s powerful journey and legacy. Join us at the Byrd Theater on Dec. 22 at 6 p.m. to experience his story alongside family and former students. Secure your tickets here.