By Marc Raimondi
Steve Piorkowski has suffered from arthritis in his shoulders for years, the product of playing sports and coaching his entire life. One day in late January, though, the pain got bad — intolerably bad.
“The difference is the level of soreness that I had went from one to an 11,” the longtime Bayside girls’ basketball and softball coach said.
The sensation was so intense that Piorkowski couldn’t even hold his head up. After a trip to the hospital and visits to his orthopedist, results turned up something far more serious than arthritis: a plasmacytoma in his neck.
A vicious malignant tumor was eating away at the bone marrow in Piorkowski’s CG vertebra. When he woke up that day in January, he had a broken neck.
“When they told me what it was, I never heard of it in my life,” he said. “It sounded so foreign. I just really wanted to know, where do we go from here?”
Obviously, Piorkowski, 51, wouldn’t be able to coach the Commodores girls’ basketball team for the remainder of the season. But other than that, he got good news. There would be pain, but the plasmacytoma hadn’t turned into multiple myeloma — it hadn’t spread anywhere besides his neck.
With Piorkowski fighting cancer, his Bayside team has embarked on its own incredible journey. The Commodores, seeded 38th out of 40 teams in PSAL Class A, have advanced all the way to the semifinals.
“We’re doing all this for him,” senior forward Syndy Durugordon said.
The players saw Piorkowski for the first time last Sunday. He came by the school as the Commodores were practicing. It was emotional for both parties. Mitchell said she was in tears. Piorkowski, who is extremely physically fit, was wheelchair-bound and prone, because of his broken neck.
“It was really tough seeing him like that,” said Steve Scharf, the JV boys’ coach who has taken the reins of the girls’ team.
He told the players that they were doing what he always knew they could do, that they were fulfilling their potential. Piorkowski also said how tough it has been to be away from the team during this Cinderella run. During a huge upset victory over defending champion Wings this week in the quarterfinals, senior Sara DeLuca put his name on a piece of paper in her sneaker, dedicating the game to him.
“That feels really good,” Piorkowski said. “That’s really nice. That’s just heartwarming that you can have an effect on a kid like that. It’s really sweet. I don’t know what to say. It makes me feel a lot better.”
Like Bayside, Piorkowski still has work to do. He got good news last Thursday. His blood and protein levels are back to normal. The radiation treatments he’s been undergoing have worked. Piorkowski might not need chemotherapy. Doctors even think he could be able to forego surgery, that the bone will regenerate once the tumor is destroyed.
“I’m in really good shape, to be honest with you,” Piorkowski said. “It’s the neck that’s the tough part. If this was in my hand or my elbow, I’d be working.”
He has left his teams in able hands. Scharf and JV softball Coach Maggie Kassimis, who will take over the varsity on an interim basis, are both former students of his. Piorkowski, who his players lovingly refer to as “P,” hopes to be back in June for a potential Bayside softball playoff run.
It would be hard to top what the girls’ basketball team is doing. Senior forward Ashley Mitchell said she and her teammates were even more inspired to beat Wings in the quarterfinals after seeing Piorkowski three days earlier.
“He said, ‘I’m so proud of you guys, I could cry,’” Mitchell said. “And to hear that from ‘P?’ He never shows any emotion ever. It was amazing.”
Added Piorkowski, “I think I’m a little astonished by it, to be honest. They’ve played dominant basketball against some very good teams.”
Bayside, which finished fifth in PSAL Queens A East, defeated No. 6 Beacon in the first round, which sent its confidence soaring. The Commodores took down No. 11 Lafayette in the second round and then powerful Wings — coming back from 27-15 down at halftime — in the quarters. Next up is Curtis, which is arguably favored to win the whole thing.
Piorkowski, who plans to be in attendance, isn’t worried.
“They don’t think they’re going to lose,” he said. “They’re not going there to lose.”
He doesn’t plan on it either.
