The Challenge of Coach’s Life

Jenny Hilt-Costello is fiercely competitive and driven to succeed, personality traits that have enabled her to beat the odds in a couple of important situations.

As a tennis player, she didn’t take up the sport until the age of 13, spurned scholarship offers to attend UCLA as a walk-on, then worked her way into the singles lineup and played on the 1991 Bruin team that reached the NCAA finals.

As a coach, she took over a foundering Long Beach State program seven years ago and, despite limited resources, has guided the 49ers to two Big West Conference championships in three years.

Now, as her team prepares to meet her alma mater in a first-round NCAA playoff match at UCLA today, Hilt-Costello is full throttle in another fight -- with ovarian cancer.

Despite temporarily debilitating chemotherapy treatments, Hilt-Costello has missed only one of her team’s matches. Tennis has been a welcome distraction; her team a refuge.

“The girls are like my family,” she said. “I needed them and I think I needed them to need me too.”

It was last Halloween when she noticed a lump around her abdomen. At first she shrugged it off, but it grew over the next couple of weeks. When she finally was examined by a doctor, the first diagnosis was that it was a hernia that had developed from an incision left by surgery to correct a kidney problem she had as a toddler.

Her husband, John, didn’t buy it.

A second opinion in January resulted in confirmation of the couple’s worst fear: A malignant tumor was detected, prompting Hilt-Costello to undergo a hysterectomy to remove her uterus and ovaries, which had grown to the size of a softball.

“It was in full growth mode and they needed to get it out,” John said.

Hilt-Costello is all too familiar with the ravages of cancer. Her father, Jerry, had multiple myeloma -- cancer in the blood -- and died two years ago after a long illness. Her mother, Sally, is a breast cancer survivor.

The origin of her own cancer is not hereditary, but that didn’t make the diagnosis any easier to accept. She was 31, had been active all her life, and doesn’t drink alcohol or smoke.

Ovarian cancer is most common in middle-aged women, but Hilt-Costello says she now knows too well that, “It can hit any woman at any age at any time.”

Moving on hasn’t been easy. The days before her surgery she says were “torture.” John provided emotional support, but cried in private.

Having already lost her husband, Sally Hilt was devastated by her daughter’s illness, saying, “I was afraid she was going to cave in, but the more we talked about it, the more she gathered up the strength to fight this.”

Through it all, her team has been there for her -- and her for the team.

“Out of respect for them, they needed to know what’s going on,” Hilt-Costello said.

Singles player Kelly Chan, a senior, said, “I didn’t think it could happen to someone as close to me as she is. I kind of walked around in a fog for a while.”

But soon the 49ers saw the fighting spirit their coach embodies. When she first came back, Hilt-Costello led from the sidelines, but soon she was back on court.

“In a way, I think they helped each other,” said Hally Cohen, Hilt-Costello’s assistant for five years. “[The players] helped keep her feeling positive and moving forward.

“The girls could also see Jenny doing what she’s doing and they could face anything that came their way. A bad backhand isn’t the biggest problem in the world.”

Said sophomore Alanah Carroll: “She’s such a fighter and she’s so resilient. Sometimes it’s not even noticeable what she’s going through except for the scarf she wears.”

Then came the Big West championships on April 25 at Indian Wells. Chan drilled a backhand past UC Irvine’s Tiffany Chang to clinch a singles win and secure the conference title.

The victory brought them to today’s matchup, one in which they are heavy underdogs.

But with one title having already been won, Long Beach seems comfortable in that role. Whatever happens, the players won’t give in.

“We wanted to win for ourselves, we wanted to win for each other and we wanted to win for Jenny,” Chan said of the Big West title. “Anything else is extra.”

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NCAA TENNIS TOURNAMENT

*--* WOMEN

*--*

TODAY

At USC’s Marks Tennis Stadium

* Indiana (17-7) vs. Arizona (6-12), 9 a.m.; American (16-8) vs. USC (16-6), noon.

At Los Angeles Tennis Center, UCLA

* Brigham Young (22-5) vs. Pepperdine (14-9), 10 a.m.; Long Beach State (18-8) vs. UCLA (16-7), 1 p.m.

Note: Second-round matches are 3 p.m. Saturday at both venues.

*--* MEN

*--*

SATURDAY

At USC’s Marks Tennis Stadium

* California (7-16) vs. San Diego (13-7), 9 a.m.; Montana State (17-5) vs. USC (19-3), noon.

At Los Angeles Tennis Center, UCLA

* Fresno State (13-9) vs. Pepperdine (18-8), 9 a.m.; Oral Roberts (6-13) vs. UCLA (18-5), noon.

Note: Second-round matches are Sunday. Match times are noon at USC and 1 p.m. at UCLA.