Rare health problems are nothing new for ice skating Olympic Gold Medalist and Bowling Green native Scott Hamilton, who will undergo high-tech radiation therapy for a non-cancerous brain tumor later this month.
“Needless to say, Scott is no stranger to adversity and has always faced every challenge in his life with great enthusiasm and an uncommon level of optimism,” Hamilton’s long-time publicist, Michael Sterling, said in an interview with the Associated Press.
Hamilton, who helped donate $3 million to the University in April 2004, fought and won a battle with testicular cancer in 1997.
He plans to be treated at the Cleveland Clinic, the same clinic he had chosen seven years ago.
“Scott’s spirit and confidence in Dr. Barnett, his staff and the treatment remain very high,” Sterling said.
Once there he will undergo “gamma knife” treatment, an uninvasive, outpatient treatment where pinpointed doses of high radiation are delivered to kill the tumor, while causing less damage to healthy tissue.
Results for the single-visit procedure can take several months.
As a child, Hamilton had a mysterious illness that kept him from growing. After factoring out cystic fibrosis and Schwachmann’s syndrome, doctors could only decide that his body didn’t absorb nutrients from the food he was eating.
But strangely, Hamilton did not need medicine. Once he began ice skating he started growing — a phenomenon that stumped doctors. No links have been made to the mysterious illness and cancer.
Hamilton is a four-time U.S. champion, four-time world champion and the 1984 Olympic gold medalist in figure skating. He was adopted by the late University professors Ernest and Dorothy Hamilton.
Hamilton visited the campus last year to speak at a day-long seminar for business and finance majors when he also presented the University with a $3 million check alongside Bowling Green alumnus and co-founder of Fox Sports Grill, William Dallas.