Chloe Egan walked into Nobles' Rappaport Gymnasium on March 8 with an atypical storm of emotions. Her Berkshire girls basketball team was a game away from its first NEPSAC championship in 33 years. The last time they were in this gym, two and a half months earlier, the Bears blew two games leading by double digits, and they had since clawed back to the Class B Large final as a No. 7 seed.
The last time Egan was here, she didn't know her father, Jim Egan, had a stomach sickness that was actually a rapidly-spreading cancer.
"I think walking into the gym, it was already just kind of overwhelming — just, wow. Last time I was here, he was still alive, and I hadn't even found out what was happening," Egan said. "I had a lot of family fly in and come and support me. But I knew there was someone missing — the person that I care most about coming and watching it."
Egan had spent the winter panicking and grieving for her father, who unconditionally supported her basketball journey. As the senior captain took the floor for her last prep school contest, she wanted to give him one more game to be proud of.
