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T-Ball All Star Beats Cancer
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COLUMBIA - You don't need to pay big bucks at a big league ballpark to see athletes do amazing things.

Six year old Jill Zulovich is a T-Ball player for the Daniel Boone Little League Pee-Wee Royals.  Little league is all about figuring out the basics. 

Doug Crouse, the Royals T-Ball coach, said," I think it's organized chaos is what it is."  And Jill Zulovich is right in the middle of it all.  "A wonderful little ballplayer.  She hustles all the time.  Had you not known the story or if you didn't know the story you would never know there were any issues that she'd ever had," said Crouse. 

When Jill was two, a simple game of ball never seemed possible.  Joyce Zulovich, Jill's mother, said, "When we changed her diaper it was excruciating pain.  We all thought we were pinching her or pocking her or something and litle did we know she had a tumor that was suprresing her spinal column causing the pain."  A highly aggressive rhabdoid tumor was wrapped around her spine.  Doctors told her parents she only had a 10 percent chance of surviving and a 90 percent chance of being paralyzed.

"It was horrible.  You're in shock and denial, and bitter.  And then you just come around and accept it and fight," said Joyce.

The fight took the Zulovich family to Memphis.  The tumor destroyed two of her vertebrae.  "It was long and tiring and lonely at times.  But we were not going to leave Memphis until she was cancer free," said Joyce.

And one hundred one nights after checking into the hospital, Jill left cancer free.  "It just pulls at your heart strings, and the amazing challenges that she went through and how she's come through it is just incredible," said Crouse.

And her coach isn't the only one taking notice.  The president of the United States wants to see Jill in a T-Ball All-Star game.

"She really doesn't know what to think, but she's excited about getting the autographed baseball from the president.  She wants to hit it to the grass at the White House, but the whole field is grass so I think she'll accomplish that goal," said Joyce.  "By looking at six-year-old Jill Zulovich on the ball diamond you'd never know Jill is a medical miracle," she added.

Doctors still screen Jill every six months, but the last check up showed no evidence of any cancer.  She can play any non-contact sports, and likes to dance along with playing T-Ball.

The All-Star game on the White House south Lawn is July 16th.  Jill and her family will meet President Bush before they play.

Reported by: Eric Blumberg
Posted by: Kristie Aronow

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