Lauren Hill, a 19-year-old freshman basketball player at Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati who discovered a couple years ago she had an inoperable brain tumor, died Friday, leaving behind a legacy of inspiration that included this basic message: Live each day as if it were the last.
Hill, who became known around the nation simply as Lauren, co-founded The Cure Starts Now, an organization dedicated to cancer research, shortly after she learned of her health issue. In just a short time, the nonprofit raised more than $1.5 million, Fox Sports reported.
"She's made an impact on the world, more so than me – more than I ever will do," her basketball coach Dan Benjamin said. "I've gotten so many emails and phone calls from all over the world. People are contacting me because they want to share her story."
Hill learned of the diagnosis when she went out for the team at Mount St. Joseph and started to feel dizzy. She went to a doctor and soon after learned of her tumor and that she had two years to live. But she refused to give up.
TRENDING: 'Art of the Deal': How Trump turns COVID issue into 'win-win'
"I'm spreading awareness and also teaching people how to live in the moment because the next moment's not promised," she said in an interview with the Associated Press after one of her basketball practices. "Anything can happen at any given moment. What matters is right now."
One of Hill's dreams was to play in a college basketball game. CNN reported she was able to do so, based in part on an NCAA decision to let the university move its schedule up two weeks to give her a better chance of playing.