Almost seven months have passed since Alyssa Santoro lost her father to pancreatic cancer and her mother nearly died of a brain aneurysm. But asking the Forest Hill resident and North Harford graduate to sum up what she, her mother and younger sister have endured remains difficult.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s still very new, I feel like. We have each other, and I feel like that’s what matters.”
Santoro, a distance runner at Salisbury, recently capped her five-year career with a pair of bronze medals in indoor and outdoor track, contributing to the program finishing third at both Coast-2-Coast Athletic Conference championships.
And on June 27, she was selected by the conference as this year’s recipient of the Medal of Inspiration, awarded to a person who has “persevered through extraordinary circumstances and whose determination, devotion, and passion are exemplary, revered among their peers, and worthy of special recognition.”
“Santoro not only persevered but showcased her hard work, leadership and guidance to help the team succeed academically and athletically,” the conference said in a written statement.
Sea Gulls track and field coach Jim Jones, who nominated Santoro for the honor, was delighted by the conference’s decision.
“I was hoping that the conference would see what occurred and the great adversity that she overcame,” he said. “When I read the description of the award, it hit her to a T. … Every step of the way, she’s been our leader, she’s been a captain, she’s brought people together. She has a heck of a work ethic not only in athletics, but also in academics. She’s just one of those kids you wish you could have for your entire career.”
Santoro’s roots in athletics began in softball when she was 5 years old. Anthony “Guy” Santoro, III coached Alyssa and her younger sister Carmen in softball until they left for college, but Alyssa added cross country and track as a junior at North Harford.
Anthony and Holly Santoro made the three-hour drive from Forest Hill to Salisbury for every home meet in cross country and track with Alyssa joking that they have more Salisbury gear than she does. Anthony Santoro was a typical girl dad, Alyssa said.
“He was my best friend,” she said. “He was so easy to talk to. You could talk to him about anything.”
When Alyssa and Carmen, a freshman at Coastal Carolina, returned home for Thanksgiving break last fall, their father informed them that he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The news floored the sisters.
“He was really scared, which is understandable,” Alyssa said, noting that her father ate little, had a persistent cough, and was jaundiced. “Our only reaction was to cry. We didn’t really have any words for it.”
The last thing Santoro told her father before returning to school was that there were only 20 days before Christmas break when she could spend more time with him. But Anthony Santoro died Dec. 10 at the age of 52.
“I got a call from my mom before those 20 days were up,” she said of the cancer. “I didn’t know that it could go that quickly.”
While setting up for the first of two viewings on Dec. 14, Holly Santoro felt hot and faint and was taken to an area hospital. She underwent emergency surgery that night for an aneurysm and was not discharged until two weeks later.
Alyssa and Carmen Santoro made a routine of visiting their mother every day, driving home to accept meals prepared by their mother’s coworkers and sleeping together in the family room. Alyssa Santoro acknowledged the sisters questioning why their family had to experience such trauma.
“Me and my sister would think, ‘What did we do to this world?’ It’s unfortunate, but I do think that everything happens for a reason,” she said. “I still don’t necessarily see the reason with my dad, but I’m really happy with my mom. It was amazing how much she recovered. That could have been a lot worse than it was. So we’re extremely lucky for that, and I’m just going to take the positives out of it and not ask, ‘Why is this happening to me?’”
Returning to school at the end of January, Santoro helped the Sea Gulls’ distance medley relay team win bronze at the C2C Indoor Championships on Feb. 16. She then earned a come-from-behind bronze medal in the 5,000 meters — the final race of her career — at the C2C Outdoor Championships on May 4.
Holly Santoro, who underwent surgery in March to clamp off a stem and prevent another aneurysm, watched her daughter in the 5,000-meter event, and she and Carmen hugged Alyssa afterward.
“Coming down the last stretch and seeing my family there, it was just an awesome moment,” Alyssa said, adding that her mother has returned to work as a social worker for the state.
Jones said the sight of Santoro with her mother and sister brought many observers to tears.
“It was a joyous celebration of all that she went through and had done and the goals she had set for herself,” he said. “It was a storybook ending. She ended things on a high note.”
While Santoro credited her teammates and coaches for helping her juggle training, classes and her mother’s health, Jones said Santoro rarely allowed the stress to surface.
“I could tell during the times we would kind of walk a lap around the track and we would talk about how she was doing, and you could tell it weighed on her,” he said. “But she kind of kept that close to her. She’s a very positive person, very upbeat, very joyous, fun to be around, and everybody just loves her.”
In May, Santoro graduated with a dual bachelor’s in environmental studies and outdoor education and leadership and plans to help her mother for a year before pursuing her career. She said she feels her father’s spirit continue to accompany her.
“I like to think that way,” she said. “I don’t know what goes on afterward, but I would like to think that he’s still with me and that with everything that I’m doing, he’s cheering me on somewhere.”
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