The Next Goal: Olympic Champion Scott Hamilton’s Crusade To Help Cancer Patients

What happens when you reach the apex of your career at an impressionable and young age? For some, it can lead to a disaster. Simply consider the legions of professional athletes who won their ultimate trophy or medal while still in their teens, only to spiral down a dark lonely path often filled with substance abuse or bankruptcy. For others, the new platform becomes a launching pad for their next big move. For a smaller few, they leverage their platform to leave this world better than they found it.

Consider Scott Hamilton, the 1984 Olympic gold medalist in men’s figure skating. After winning his Olympic and, subsequently, fourth world championship, he went on to a long and illustrious career as a professional skater with the International Stars on Ice and Ice Capades, wowing audiences with his backflips on the ice. When those days were over, he became a beloved sports commentator on television whose excitement for the athletes exuded through his narration of their program. When they landed a difficult move, you could just hear Scott jumping out of his seat in excitement.

He could have hung up his skates for good and enjoyed an easier life. He earned it. He’s spent thousands of hours training and traveling during his career. But he wasn’t done yet. He routinely gets offers to do promotional activities. He’s turned down the hit television show Dancing with the Stars seven times, not because he doesn’t want to, but because he’s too busy with his latest passion project.

He has his eye on something special. Something personal. Something that could change the lives of millions of people he will never have the opportunity to meet. “You need to retire to something,” he told me.

The dream to cure cancer

What he retired to might be his biggest challenge yet. Scott Hamilton wants to cure cancer. His latest adventure hits strikingly close to home. Scott lost his mother to the terrible disease and is a cancer survivor. His treatment for testicular cancer and multiple brain tumors made him realize how unequipped he was to deal with his new reality. Scott had an understandable visceral fear of his diagnosis, which he replaced with courage, authority, and his newfound mission. He couldn’t control his diagnosis, but like most high achievers, he aimed to ‘control what he could control.’ He decided to do everything he could to beat his cancer and be back on tour the following year.

His treatment was brutal. Rounds of chemotherapy, radiation, and a weekly antibiotic dose would knock him out, followed by surgery. His life-saving treatments had numerous adverse side effects, and he felt like a shell of his former self. Scott was used to being around big crowds, and suddenly, his world got eerily quiet as his former life got pulled out from under him. He was unprepared for the loneliness and despair accompanying the difficult cancer treatment.

His cancer survival story is filled with hills and craters he never saw coming. It was a volatile experience, and he did not want any other cancer patient to ever go through this. His biggest and latest challenge was to launch and fund the Scott Hamilton CARES Foundation (CARES stands for Cancer Alliance for Research, Education, and Survivorship). He aims to support advanced innovative research that “treats the cancer and spares the patient harm.”

His vision is limitless, and Scott is relentless. With 18 fundraising events a year, Scott

is on a mission to meet his next goal. CARES has its hands in every part of the cancer journey, including research, education, wellness, and funding of treatments.

Not focused on any one type of cancer, CARES partnered with The V Foundation to offer cancer research grants which focus on immunotherapy treatments to scientists and institutions. Other funded projects supported by CARES include offering funds to patients to travel to treatments, financially supporting clinical trials, and basic science research.

Discouraged by the lack of digestible and relatable information on the side effects of the treatments, Scott worked with oncology physicians, nurses, and scientists to create www.chemocare.com, which shares the side effect of every cancer medication. Realizing that most patients can’t read medical jargon, the site is written in eighth-grade English and translated into Spanish.

1.9 million new cancer cases are expected in the US in 2022. From corporate sponsors to $19.84 (to coincide with the year Scott won his Olympic medal) monthly donations from private citizens, Scott CARES is working to fund this foundation which can help every single patient control what they can control. The year 1984 profoundly changed Scott’s life. He is honoring this special time with the 1984 CARES Campaign, hoping to positively influence the lives of those diagnosed with cancer.

For more information on Scott CARES, visit www.scottcares.org, and to see the upcoming events, click here.

You can read more about Scott Hamilton’s story in Finish First and The Success Factor.