Q-&-A with Tayla Jackson: As she finishes her first round of chemotherapy, former Brookswood, SFU hoops star, 28, speaks to her battle, and to the truth of hardcourt lessons worth leaning on!

By Howard Tsumura

VarsityLetters.ca

LANGLEY — If you’re a member of B.C.’s tight-knit basketball community, you may well already have heard the gist of her story.

Two weeks ago, former Brookswood Secondary and Simon Fraser hoops standout Tayla Jackson wasn’t feeling herself.

At the time, with the start of hoops season just around the corner, she was in the midst of conducting tryouts for the Grade 8 girls basketball team she had been set to coach this season at Surrey’s Sullivan Heights Secondary.

First there was an infected tooth, then later a sinus infection, and it was the latter which ultimately took her to Peace Arch Hospital for routine bloodwork. But when results came back, it brought the world of the busy 28-year-old high school teacher and coach, and mother of a five-year-old son, to a screeching halt.

The diagnosis was Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML), a rare and aggressive cancer of the blood.

On Nov. 4, Jackson began an aggressive seven-day round of chemotherapy treatments at VGH, and she is expected to remain in hospital until the end of the month as doctors continue to monitor her response to the treatments.

Varsity Letters had contacted Jackson’s family to check on her condition and her spirits following the first round of chemotherapy when her dad Daryl suggested we talk to Tayla herself, by phone from her hospital room, where her company consisted of her older sister Anna and her boyfriend Jack.

Throughout the course of the interview, two things were abundantly clear.

First, the level of support from her family and her huge community of friends has never waivered, and the gratitude she holds for each and every one of them is unmistakable. A GoFundMe page has been created to help her throughout her battle. If you want to help, you can do so by clicking here.

Secondly, during a life spent loving basketball as an athlete, and now a second chapter just beginning as a high school basketball coach, it’s no stretch to say that the lessons she learned along the way as a player have helped her find an inner strength amidst the uncertainty of the future.

(Author’s note — Tayla Jackson’s incredible generosity to speak with me just days removed from her initial round of chemo treatments, and the message she has for student-athletes and coaches alike are each so special that I am writing this story as a Q-and-A with author’s notes supplied when necessary. There is something absolutely unique about the way she spoke from the heart this morning that I feel it is best honoured in this way. I hope you feel the same way.  — Howard)

TAYLA JACKSON Q&A FROM VGH

Varsity Letters: Have you asked yourself ‘Why me?’, and ‘Why have I been given this battle to fight right now?’ I’m just wondering within your mental process, kind of where you’re at with things right now?

Tayla Jackson: I mean, it doesn’t make sense to me, but I also know that it’s never gonna make sense. So I’m just trying to spend my energy focussing on moving forward as opposed to, you know, going crazy, looking at the drawing board and trying to figure out how this all came to be. I have received so much love and support from so many people that it’s hard to feel sorry for myself, to be honest. Like, it sucks and some days I feel really, really crummy. But at the end of the day, I just have such an amazing village that I know I can get through whatever it is.

Varsity Letters: So your older sister, Anna Parker, and your boyfriend, Jack Westcott, are with you right now, lending their support?

Tayla Jackson: Yeah and between the both of them, there’s someone here, basically 24/7!

Varsity Letters: You’ve grown up in the world of sports, you’ve loved being around teammates. Now you’re transitioning into teaching, coaching and mentorship. You work in this environment of constant human contact, reaching out and helping everybody get better and stronger through team. How much has it helped you re-trench as you move forward through this difficult time?

Tayla Jackson: I mean it’s easier to get through things when you don’t make things about yourself. You know what I mean? Like when you’re focussing on what you’re pouring into others, especially young females who need guidance. I just look at it and I go, yeah, sure, I have things going on, but if I could show up for this girl who’s, you know, 14- or 15-years-old and make a difference in her day because I had that experience myself… the impact I could have is way more than me just sitting at home feeling sorry for myself. But I do miss the coaching to be honest. I’m really bummed. I was going to coach the Grade 8 girls this year at my school (Sullivan Heights).

(Author’s note — Tayla Jackson coached the Semiahmoo Thunderbirds to the B.C. junior girls championship title in 2023-24. Last season she coached the junior girls team at Surrey’s Earl Marriott Secondary. As a young teacher in the district, her posting to Sullivan Heights is her first full-time teaching position in the Surrey School District.)

Varsity Letters: At what stage of preparations were you at with the Grade 8 girls at Sullivan Heights when you got your diagnosis?

Tayla Jackson: So it was actually kind of crazy because I don’t know if my dad mentioned, but I had a tooth infection from an old root canal that I had to get revised. And then it basically led into a sinus infection, and that sinus infection is what I went to the hospital for… and then they told me I had leukemia. But the week leading up to me going to the hospital, I’d been experiencing terrible night sweats and fevers, coughing blood, sneezing blood. But I was still at work, and I literally was at the tryout for my Grade 8 girls on Monday and Tuesday (October. 27-28), and I had the chills so bad. And I was like, I just gotta get through this (team) list cause the girls were so excited. I was at the hospital on Thursday (October. 30), making the team list to send to my co-workers to post on the board, because I had no idea that I wasn’t going to be coming back to work. Right now I also just need to be realistic with how I preserve my energy, but you see the girls, they show up, they’re so excited, and they’ve given everything they’ve got. And it’s like, you know, I need to do that as well in return. So…”

Varsity Letters: As the coach of a Grade 8 team, you are dealing with young people who are just getting a sense of adulthood. And, you know, all of a sudden, their coach has adversity in her life. What do you want your Sullivan Heights Grade 8 girls to take away from looking at the way you’re standing up and meeting this head on?

Tayla Jackson: I think I would like to say to them ‘You have more of an impact than you realize’, because those girls might think that I just coach them, you know, once or twice a week for a couple of hours, but it’s more impactful than they think. And it’s times like this when stuff goes sideway, and where people are reaching out to me and having my back, and I didn’t realize that I even had so much of an impact on them.  So I guess what I would say to them is to just be true to yourself. Try to focus on the positive things and understand that you have an impact, even if it doesn’t feel like it.”

Varsity Letters: You’re obviously battling something big, and you have talked a lot about how important the life lessons learned through sport can’t help but mirror the human condition. Especially now, when so many don’t coach, you espouse its merits in such an eloquent way. Why do you coach?

Tayla Jackson: I mean, I just feel as though I have this skill-set and these mentor values that I have to share with these girls, and depriving them of experiencing that because I have too much going on or because it’s another time commitment or because I don’t get paid for it, just doesn’t seem good enough for me. Obviously, right now it’s a different situation where I’m unable to do it, but when it comes time to me being able to coach, I just think it would be depriving these girls of such an immediate opportunity, and they’re willing and eager. So I can’t go to bed at night knowing I’m not giving them something that could potentially change their high school experience because it could lead into their young-adulthood experience. You know what I mean? It definitely snowballs. Like, if I didn’t have Mr. Brown, I don’t know what my high school experience would have been like. He’s put in more hours than anyone I’ve known, all completely volunteer. I had that mentorship demonstrated to me and we were able to re-connect through coaching once I became a teacher. So I just feel like when you have an experience with somebody, the least you can do is continue to try and pass it on. If someone shares their gift with you, like the gift of mentorship or the gift of their skills, coaching, whatever it may be, the best thing you can do is try and pass it on. Keeping it to yourself means you’re depriving others of that experience. I’m very grateful that I still get to have that experience with him, not only him just coaching with me in basketball, but also continuing just to support me through life as an adult. So I feel very fortunate.

(Author’s note — Tayla Jackson helped Brookswood teams coached by Neil Brown win B.C. senior girls top-tiered titles in 2014 and ’15. Jackson played NCAA Division 1 basketball at UC-Irvine, then returned to play two seasons under coach Bruce Langford at Simon Fraser. The past two seasons, Brown had assisted Jackson during her coaching stints at Semiahmoo and Earl Marriott)

THANKS

Varsity Letters thanks Daryl Palmer, Gary Ahuja, Ashley Hayes and Wilson Wong for their help in producing this story.

GOFUNDME

(Again, if you wish to help, donations to support Tayla and her family can be made by clicking this GoFundMe link)

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