Over the course of the past season, Head Football Coach Bob Benson was forced to deal with a number of difficult on field challenges from many of Division I-AA’s top teams during a daunting schedule. As tough as these trials were, they were nothing close to those he faced away from the field after the birth of his first child on June 18.
Hope Benson was born with trisomy-13, a rare chromosomal disorder, and was diagnosed with the syndrome shortly after births. The condition is extremely rare, occuring at most in only one of every 2,000 live birth. Also called Patau’s syndrome, trisomy-13 usually leads to miscarriages, and of the few children who do survive through birth, 45 percent of those with the disorder do not live past their first month.
Despite this bleak outlook, Coach Benson and his wife Megan Alexander, field hockey coach and first and second grade learning disabilities teacher at the Potomac School, embraced their daughter and decided to value every day they had with her, incorporating her into all aspects of their life. She was treated as a normal child and was brought to all of the events that the parents would have taken a child without the disorder. Hope attended nearly all football games with the team, missing only the Oct. 4 game against Lafayette after recovering from surgery.
This surgery was one of a number that the infant underwent. Still, Hope fought against the odds and overcame a number of complications to survive beyond her first month and into a much longer life than expected. Her attendance at the football games became expected, and she could be seen at Potomac field hockey games after Alexander began that position again.
Throughout it all, the most courageous aspect of the entire situation was the insistance of Coach Benson and Alexander to continue their life as they had known it, and to incorporate Hope into that life in every way they could. While they could have easily taken a year off from their respective positions, the couple decided that both they and Hope would be much better served if they continued their work and invested themselves in it as they had before. They refused to feel sorry for themselves because of their daughter’s condition, and they embraced and were thankful for their ability to spend the time they had with her.
Hope Benson passed away of complications from trisomy-13 Jan. 14 at the Georgetown Hospital. While her life was limited to six months, she lived them more fully and with more fight than most trisomy-13 cases, and was incorporated into environments most wouldn’t have considered possible for the infant.
Just a week removed from his daughter’s death, Coach Benson is back to hard work, finalizing the addition of former Navy head coach Elliot Uzelac as the team’s offensive coordinator beginning next season. Uzelac will replace Joe Moorhead, who left after the completion of last season to become the quarterbacks coach at Akron. Benson also finalized a contract extension that will keep him with the team through the 2009 season.
Coach Benson’s quick turnaround is emblamatic of the mentality used throughout Hope’s life, one that let the couple appreciate her and her differences rather than focus on her shortfalls. The after effects of the entire situation also demonstrate the compassion often found outside the limelight of major Division I-A sports. After their experiences with Hope, a number of Georgetown football players have begun volunteer work with children at the hospital. While her trials may have taxed all the emotions and energy of her parents, they also provided an even deeper inspiration for the team and her fans, an inspiration that even outlasts the shining moments from the team on the field.
