As Aliquippa played Karns City in a state quarterfinal two weeks ago, Anita Gordon had to walk out of Reeves Field at Geneva College to sit in her car.
Her phone wouldn't stop buzzing with questions about the game, and she didn't know enough about football to answer them. She needed help from the radio.
"Who has the ball now?" flashed a text on her screen.
"What yard line?" read another.
Whatever the play-by-play announcers said on the broadcast, she typed in response to her nephew, DiMantae Bronaugh, who likely was lying down in his room back home in Aliquippa, trying not to vomit.
Just a year ago, Gordon enjoyed Aliquippa's games from the stands, watching Bronaugh run for 1,262 yards and 24 touchdowns as a junior. But the star running back's senior season was over before it even began when doctors diagnosed him with acute lymphoblastic leukemia about a week before the season opener.
Now as Bronaugh undergoes chemotherapy treatments every two weeks, his team is off to the PIAA Class AA championship game against Southern Columbia noon Saturday at Hersheypark Stadium.
"I'm real happy," Bronaugh said of the Quips' success. "Just mad I can't play."
When the family first heard the cancer diagnosis, Gordon, his aunt and guardian, was worried. What does it mean? How do they fix it?
Bronaugh, though, had only one question.
"'So, does this mean I can't play football?'" Gordon said. "If they would have told him, 'You have leukemia, but you can still play football,' he would have been like, 'OK, we can deal with that.'"
That heartbreak of missing his senior season has fueled Bronaugh throughout his treatment, and Dr. Scott Maurer of the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh said Bronaugh has been "chill" about his situation.
If Bronaugh's pain is at an 11 on a one to 10 scale, he'll act just fine. In fact, Maurer said Bronaugh is the only patient he has ever had who ran football drills during induction therapy.
Maurer did have a few concerns about Bronaugh rushing back to the field, but his patient dispelled those quickly. Bronaugh's energy level might be only at 80 percent, but his 80 percent is an average person's 150 percent, his doctor said.
But energy isn't the only issue: If Bronaugh's blood counts are low, he could bleed internally if tackled.
"His friends have all assured me that he never gets tackled," Maurer said. "He just keeps running, and no one can catch him."
The 18-year-old is on track to attend a football camp this summer, and he could be eligible for a waiver that would allow him to play for Aliquippa next year, because he has missed a whole semester of school for his treatment.
Yet even with that laser-like focus of returning to the field, Bronaugh admitted it has been harder than he imagined.
"At first I thought ... 'I can't play football. That [stinks], but that's the only thing that's going to be hard,'" he said. "But no, it's a lot harder now that I've actually kind of went through chemo."
While his teammates have been busy winning WPIAL championships and marching through the state playoffs, they always have Bronaugh in the back of their minds. His friends on the team will call him to talk before games. Coaches will text him in-game updates for when his aunt's narration isn't quite up to par. Bronaugh was even on the sidelines at Heinz Field when Aliquippa beat South Fayette for that WPIAL title.
"He's a big part of our team. He carries us all the way through, even when he has leukemia," said senior running back Kaezon Pugh, who expected to team with Bronaugh this season to form one of the WPIAL's best backfield tandems. "It hurts, but he's got to keep strong. This is all for him ... for our team, for our community and for DiMantae."
Aliquippa coach Mike Zmijanac said he thinks of all his players as his kids, and Bronaugh is still listed and treated as one of the team's captains. Each player is dealing with the situation on a personal level, Zmijanac said, but they are all united in one pursuit.
"The best thing they can do is get him a championship," the coach said.
Bronaugh plans to be there on the sidelines at Hersheypark Stadium for the state title game, coaching his teammates up.
"I say it all the time, 'I would have done that,'" Bronaugh said. "They're like, 'All right, we're not you.'"
The cure rate for Bronaugh's leukemia has risen in the past 50 years from 4 percent to 90 percent, and Bronaugh is in remission currently. But he still has a long road of treatment ahead of him, with his last course of therapy scheduled for Dec. 11, 2018 -- three years from now.
He won't be able to run the ball Saturday on the biggest stage in Pennsylvania high school football, but for now, just being there is enough.
"It's hard, but the part you always would be waiting for in the season, I still get to go to," Bronaugh said. "I'm still part of the team."
Megan Ryan: mryan@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1722 and Twitter @theothermegryan.
First Published: December 18, 2015, 5:00 a.m.