By Ana Bellinghausen, Reporter
Omaha, Neb. — Be kind, be honest and help others. That was the message Andrea Daves received from her father on every car ride to elementary school, and those are words that Andrea still carries with her today.
The Denver native signed with the Mavericks in 2017. While she spent most of her life with a soccer ball at her feet, her biggest challenge arrived off the field.
When Andrea was in second grade, doctors found a cancerous tumor in her father’s pancreas and left him with two options.
The first was to remove his pancreas and live just five unhealthy years. The second option was to fight off the tumors with chemotherapy and operations.
That option guaranteed just three years, but healthier ones, to spend with his family.
“Anything he did he took us into account, and he’d tell us that and it was true,” Daves said.
Dave Daves chose the second option to keep fighting. He lived 11 years longer than any doctor expected.
“I knew he wouldn’t die without me feeling as though I knew or that I could complete something I needed to complete with him,” Daves said.
It wasn’t until Andrea’s senior year of college at UNO that her father passed away.
“When you keep having to fight something over and over… I could tell that he was so tired,” Daves said.
Soccer bonded the two since Andrea’s childhood between club and high school soccer.
“The first thing that he would mention to people about me is how I play soccer,” Daves said. “Not because he was an athlete growing up, not because he lived vicariously through me and my career…it’s more that he was just so happy that I was doing something that I liked.”
Even if it was a 12-hour drive alone, Andrea’s father would still travel anywhere to see her play.
“Right after the game I was able to talk to him for maybe five minutes and then I had to get on the bus and leave,” Daves said. “Now in retrospect I can say “wow”…he really just wanted to be with me and cared about me so much.”
While being away from home, Andrea said her friends and teammates helped her through it most.
“It feels like no one understands because at my age few people have lost parents…but in that, I felt how much love I had for my friends that didn’t understand and who, regardless, were just so there for me,” Daves said.
As Andrea finishes up her final season with the Mavericks, she knows her father will still be with her at every game…and he is forever remembered by every life he touched.
“He wanted to be remembered as a good father and a really good dad,” Daves said.
