She’S No Quitter Despite Three Surgeries To Remove Tumors From Her Leg, Stacy Flemming Didn’T Give Up On Sports

Stacy Flemming refused to quit playing basketball.

Even when it would have been the easiest thing to do.

Flemming - a reserve post for the Shadle Park girls basketball team that upset Gonzaga Prep 56-54 in overtime Tuesday in the first round of the District 8 4A Tournament - has had three surgeries on her left leg to remove benign tumors.

Flemming’s first surgery was in sixth grade, and the tumor was scraped out. When it grew back in another part of her leg in seventh grade, Flemming had a second surgery. That time, four inches of her tibia bone were removed and replaced with donor bone from a bone bank. The bone was held in place with screws. Flemming walked with crutches for six months.

In the third surgery - when Flemming was a ninth-grader - doctors cut off six more centimeters of her bone, inserted chips from her hip and a titanium rod down the center of her bone. The rod goes from her kneecap to her ankle. She was on crutches again for a few months.

But she didn’t miss the basketball season.

“It took a few years to be 100 percent,” said Flemming, 17. “I wasn’t supposed to play my freshman or sophomore year, but I did anyway.”

She also throws the discus and shot put for the Shadle track team.

“I feel really fortunate,” said Flemming, a 5-foot-11 senior who plans to either pursue a career with Northwest Basketball Camps, attend Spokane Falls Community College or go into the military after graduation.

“I feared my sports career was done,” she added. “It kind of kept me going that I had been through so much and was fortunate enough to do sports. A lot of kids don’t have that opportunity.”

Flemming’s mother Marg has been impressed with her daughter’s perseverance and says she’s an inspiration to others.

In 1998, Flemming made NBC’s international tour team to play in England, Ireland and Scotland.

“Not many young athletes would keep going,” her mom said. “She has never given up or quit.”

Flemming plays almost half of the game and has been a key rebounder in some games. She still limps when she runs.

Highlanders coach Chad Dezellem is surprised she’s even playing. Dezellem said he believes if Flemming hadn’t been slowed down by the leg problem, she could have developed into a steady contributor.

“It puts you behind every time it happens, then there’s recovery time and rehabilitation,” Dezellem said. “It’s tough, but she has a big heart and works hard.

“I knew the kind of person she was and that she was going to give it everything she had,” he said. “There’s been a lot of frustration because she loves the game and gives it everything she has.”