Frank G. Lindsey Student Forges Lasting Bond with Girls Basketball Team

Ryan Snyder considers herself an athlete. Although she’s now in fourth grade, Ryan has already been a regular participant in competitive soccer and gymnastics in addition to trying other sports, basketball included.

Ryan’s athletic pursuits are currently on hold while she battles leukemia, but a special bond forged this winter helped to fuel her competitive spirit and provided a measure of camaraderie that — as a very social person — she has missed.

Through head coach Megan Boyle, who teaches at Frank G. Lindsey Elementary School, the Hendrick Hudson varsity girls basketball team invited Ryan to join them this winter. She attended their home games, joining the players for the National Anthem, in the locker room and on the bench.

“I had so much fun with the girls. I felt like part of a team again,” Snyder said of cheering on the Sailors. “I miss a lot of the sports that I played, so I would really look forward to each game. I have been stuck at home all of the time, so I really liked meeting all of the girls on the team. They were so nice to me. I had so much fun sitting on the bench with them, going to the locker room, and being part of the team.”

Ryan had no previous relationship with any members of the team, but that didn’t prevent the players from embracing her.

“The first game she came to, we all had an instant connection with her,” senior captain Kaitlyn Raguso said. “She was like our good luck charm and would come to every one of our home games at the high school. Every single one of our players enjoyed her presence and her positive spirit.”

Ryan joined the team in the locker room before games, at halftime and afterward. She would listen to speeches and game plans and be in the center of team huddles, often yelling with the captains as they screamed “one…two…three, Hud!”

“We would also take turns giving her piggyback rides to the locker room or holding her hand between halves,” Raguso said. “One of my favorite memories is when I came out of the game and was a little upset with how I was playing. I instantly sat next to her on the bench and she made me feel so much better. We were laughing and making jokes about the game. That’s when I knew that not only did she need us, we needed her just as much.”

Ryan even had some of her own friends and teammates join her on the bench during games. They would sit together to cheer on the Sailors.

Ryan was present for Hen Hud’s two most important games of the season: a quarterfinal victory over Pearl River, highlighted by a last-second 3-pointer by senior Kayla McCarthy, and the team’s Section 1 semifinal game at the Westchester County Center.

Being a part of the team was special to Ryan because she has been unable to attend school or participate in school activities this year due to ongoing treatments for chemotherapy, her mother, Joy, said. She receives tutoring from teachers Dorothy Hurley and Nupar Pal-Kolisz in the evenings when she is physically able.

“We’ve been very limited with younger kids due to germs and viruses. It’s just too risky,” Joy Snyder said. “With the girls basketball team, Ryan was able to be set aside from the crowd and be part of the team and part of the sport. She formed a great bond with these girls. You would see them carrying her around everywhere. They are such good human beings and were so kind to her.”

“Whenever she was smiling and laughing, it absolutely made my day,” Raguso said. “I knew I didn’t have to worry about anything else at the moment and she could just enjoy her time with us. She definitely was part of our team; if we didn’t have her we were incomplete. It was like she was the happiness that brought our team together.”

Just two days after Hen Hud’s final game at the County Center, Ryan received a new round of treatments. Those days at the hospital can be long, her mother said, so she spent some of that downtime creating a video of the season. It included photos and short clips of her with the team.

“She wanted to create a new memory,” Joy said. “She worked on it for a few hours. Her dad and I watched and we just thought it was really special.”

“It meant a lot to me that the girls made me part of the team,” Ryan said. “I look at it like they are my team now.”