As teenagers, Lisa and David Gollob had many advantages playing tennis on the National Junior Circuit, but they had to share their mother with others. Lots of others.
Carol Gollob spent considerable time on the road with Lisa and David in the 1980s, traveling throughout the country for tournaments, often acting as the parent responsible for several of her children’s tennis mates. She often shuttled between Lisa and David’s matches, and those of their friends, making sure everyone was showered, had eaten properly and was on time and wearing the right clothes.
“She was the cheering section for everyone,” says Lisa Gollob, now Lisa Finke, 33.
“One time I was playing tennis against a girl, and she didn’t have an extra shirt,” Finke remembers. “It was August and 102 degrees, and we’d all been out there for three hours. She didn’t have any more sets of clothes to change into, and her shirt was soaked. So my mom went into the locker room, took her shirt off, just zipped up her wind-breaker, and gave her shirt to my competitor. When David and I were growing up, even if kids knew we weren’t around, they’d call to talk to her. That’s the kind of person she was.”
In 1985, when Finke was a junior at Yale, the Gollobs’ idyllic family life was altered by the news that Carol had breast cancer.
“David and I were still kind of in our own worlds,” Finke says. “My mother had 10 months of chemotherapy, and the cancer was gone. We figured the worst was behind us.”
But in the fall of 1990, as Finke was entering her first year at Northwestern’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management in Evanston, she got the news that her mother’s cancer had returned.
“We were all shell-shocked,” Finke says. “We had slapped each other on the back and said, `Let’s get on with living,’ and BAM! We were back facing it. Our mom was young and healthy. She and my dad had taken up golf. We were planning to travel. They were looking forward to retirement. When the cancer returned, we went into crisis mode. My family and I kept asking, `What do we do now? What are our options? How can we make Mom feel better?’ “
On receiving the news, David Gollob returned from France, where he’d been playing professional tennis, taking a job with a Chicago bank to be near his mother.
The family was disappointed that cancer research offered their mother little new in the five years since she was first diagnosed.
“The doctors were saying, `Well we can’t use this drug because she’s already tried it. We can’t use that treatment since she’s had it before,’ ” Finke says. “We wanted to know, Why isn’t there a cure? Shouldn’t there be new drugs? Why aren’t the doctors any more advanced?
“My father was up all night on CompuServe researching new alternatives for my mom. My brother and I kept saying to each other, `Something more should be done,’ ” Finke says.
So Finke and her brother, along with her future husband and several friends from Kellogg, started a charity tennis clinic to raise money for breast-cancer research.
“We had known about breast cancer, but we certainly weren’t involved in advocacy up until that point,” Finke says. “We’d never had a passion for a cause, but there didn’t seem to be any good options for my mom. All the treatments were still debilitating and unpleasant.
“I called up a bunch of tennis pros in the area,” Finke remembers, “and I said, `What do you think about teaching a clinic for people, and at the same time raising money for breast cancer?’ Most of them knew my mother, and they said, `Sign me up. Just tell me what I have to do and where I have to be.’ Even those who didn’t know her felt it was a great cause — so many families are affected by breast cancer.”
The first clinic drew 50 pros, nearly 200 participants and several corporate sponsors. The success led Finke and her partners to create the non-profit Carol Gollob Foundation for Breast Cancer Research and make the clinic an annual event.
“This was a way we were beginning to reach more people,” Finke says. “The foundation’s mission statement is to increase awareness of the rising incidence of breast cancer and to raise funds to benefit breast cancer research.”
For one night each May in Chicago, beginners and advanced players get together for tennis drills with coaching from the pros. They also participate in a silent auction, listen to researchers speak about the latest breakthroughs in breast-cancer treatments and enjoy food and drink. Sponsors have included William Blair and Company, Kraft and Computer Discount Warehouse. At a ticket price of $65 per person, the events have raised nearly $200,000 in seven years.
Carol Gollob passed away a week before Finke’s wedding, in October 1993, at age 55. Finke had promised her mother she would not postpone it, although she says, “It was very stressful and very sad not to have her at the wedding.”
The American Cancer Society estimates that more than 175,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in 1998, nearly 9,000 of them in Illinois. The money raised by the Carol Gollob Foundation goes to three doctors researching aspects of breast-cancer prevention or cure such as cataloguing breast tumors for analysis and researching estrogen levels and bone-marrow transplants. These doctors are affiliated with Evanston Hospital, Northwestern University and the University of Chicago.
Foundation board members “want the money to go directly to people we think can use it most,” says Finke. “The response of the doctors that we’ve donated the money to has been truly rewarding for us. When you think of finding a cure, you imagine it will take millions and millions of dollars. So to split up $25,000 three ways each year doesn’t seem like a lot. But the doctors have been so excited and thankful about the money. Even though the tennis clinic’s not a $500,000 event, we’re still making a difference.”
She’s also proud of the enthusiasm of the pros and participants of the clinic.
“People come up to us,” she says, “and they’re so happy to be a part of it. They’re glad they came. We want to raise awareness, and it’s a bonus that the people enjoy participating. And the pros are glad to be there too. Everyone’s learning about breast cancer and doing something that’s good for the community, yet it’s not a downer. We’ve even had people call and say, `How can we get more involved?’
“The summer before my mom died, my future mother-in-law was diagnosed with breast cancer,” Finke says. “And three weeks before this year’s tennis clinic, one of our board members was diagnosed with breast cancer. Once again we were hit with how prevalent it is. Every time I hear of another person being diagnosed, it makes me mad. We shouldn’t still be doing this. There should be a cure already.
“One of the things that’s so devastating about breast cancer is that it affects so many women at a young age. Now that I have children of my own, I feel the loss of my mom even more on a daily basis, and I can imagine what it’s like for others who lose someone young. My mom was my best girlfriend, and it’s so hard not to have her around. She was a really good listener. She was never critical. Just knew how to listen and let you work things out.”
Though frustrated by the lack of progress in curing breast cancer, Finke hopes for the future.
“I still think there are far too many women dying of breast cancer,” Finke says. “The biggest thing is to help find a cure and then (the foundation) can move on to different causes and say, `We’ve made a difference, we’ve helped somebody not suffer.’ My mother suffered terribly. She suffered mentally and physically, and it shouldn’t be. Awareness of breast cancer has increased, and now we need to do something about it. It’s one thing to be aware. It’s another to have a cure.”
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To reach the Carol Gollob Foundation, call 847-835-9426.
