Michelle Meadows – Cancer Survivor - Kay Yow Cancer Fund 2026

Michelle Meadows – Cancer Survivor

• PUBLISH DATE: August 28, 2026
• TAGS: Breast Cancer, Cancer Survivor

The Strength Behind the Game

Michelle Meadows has spent most of her life in athletics.

She was part of Virginia Tech softball’s first recruiting class, became a four-year starter and three-time Academic All-American, and went on to become the first softball player inducted into the Virginia Tech Sports Hall of Fame. Her career eventually moved from the field to athletics administration, where she spent nearly two decades helping lead collegiate athletics. Today, she serves as Senior Vice President, COO & CFO of the NJCAA.

But in 2015, Michelle faced a challenge unlike anything sport had prepared her for. She was 37 years old and working as a senior athletics administrator at Longwood University when, one January morning, she felt a small lump in her right breast. At first, doctors weren’t overly concerned. But additional testing led to a biopsy — and then to the phone call no one is prepared to receive. Michelle had breast cancer.

What followed was nearly a year of treatment: six months of chemotherapy, surgery and 16 radiation treatments. She experienced the physical toll of treatment, the emotional weight of losing her hair and the uncertainty that comes with a cancer diagnosis. And yet, she kept showing up. Throughout much of her treatment, Michelle continued working at Longwood. Some weeks that meant being in the office three or four days, depending on how she felt after chemotherapy. Her colleagues stepped in when she needed them. Teams wore pink bracelets. Longwood held a pink-out game in her honor. Liberty women’s basketball dedicated a game to her, and her alma mater, Virginia Tech, recognized her at a softball game. For someone who had spent her life as part of a team, suddenly the team was rallying around her. Michelle would later reflect that cancer doesn’t affect only the person receiving the diagnosis. It touches families, friends, colleagues and everyone who walks alongside them.

Her faith also became central to the way she navigated the experience. At the beginning of 2015 — before she knew she had cancer — Michelle had chosen one word to guide her year: surrender. She had no idea how much that word would come to mean. Her cancer journey became, in her words, not simply a story about breast cancer but a journey of faith. Faith that wasn’t rooted in circumstances, but in God – learning to live with uncertainty, accept help and trust through circumstances she couldn’t control.

By November 2015, after completing her final radiation treatments, Michelle was declared in full remission. Her Longwood family surprised her by wearing shirts that read “All-in-for Michelle.” But cancer had changed more than her health. It changed her perspective.

Michelle had always been driven. As an athlete, administrator and leader, goals mattered. Achievement mattered. Getting better mattered. Cancer reminded her of something even more important: people. Looking back on the experience, Michelle acknowledged that her drive to succeed had sometimes caused her to become so focused on the goal that she lost sight of the people around her. “It’s about people, too. And they’re more important than the goal.”

More than a decade later, that perspective gives Michelle’s role in the growing partnership between the NJCAA and Kay Yow Cancer Fund a deeply personal dimension. The partnership is designed to use the reach of two-year college athletics to make a difference well beyond competition — engaging student-athletes through Play4Kay, providing education through the Fund’s Empowerment Tour and supporting access grants that help women in under-resourced communities receive screenings, transportation and other critical resources.

For Michelle, those aren’t simply program objectives. She knows what it means to find a lump. To wait for test results. To hear the word cancer. To go through treatment. And to depend on the people around you to help carry you through. That’s why this partnership is personal. “As a cancer survivor, this partnership holds deep personal meaning for me,” Michelle said when the NJCAA and Kay Yow Cancer Fund announced their national partnership. “This is an opportunity for us to leave a lasting impact beyond the playing fields and within the communities that we serve through education, research and early detection.”

It’s also a powerful full-circle moment. Sport gave Michelle a place to compete, grow and lead. When cancer entered her life, the community she had built through sport surrounded her. Today, she has an opportunity to help that same community surround countless other women. Because behind every game are people. Behind every team is a community. And behind every cancer diagnosis is a woman whose life extends far beyond the disease she is facing. Michelle Meadows knows that firsthand. And she’s helping make sure the next woman who hears the words you have cancer doesn’t have to face what comes next alone.