A GoFundMe has been set up to help Andy Burns, a 2010 UVA alum who was a member of the UVA Basketball program for two seasons, and is now battling stage IV metastatic melanoma.
Burns got the news last June, as he and his wife, Laura, were preparing to welcome their second child, Peter James, PJ, into their family with their 2-year-old daughter, Caroline Jean, CJ.
“Over the past year, Andy has fought relentlessly,” his brother, Scott Burns, wrote on the GoFundMe page. “The first treatment failed, and after nine months, the second stopped working. Now, on a clinical trial, Andy is critically ill in the ICU — and needs our support.”
The obvious needs: “medical costs not covered by insurance, child care, meals, and daily expenses,” Scott Burns tell us.
The basketball part of this story: Burns was a member of the scout team in his two years with UVA Basketball, getting on the floor in 21 games, scoring 10 points and snaring 10 rebounds in 40 minutes of accumulated game action.
Those are pretty good per-40 numbers there: 10 points and 10 boards.
He was 3-of-9 from the floor and 2-of-6 from three – so, at 6’8”, he was an early version of stretch four.
I hear he was also a pretty good pick-up and IM player after his days on the scout team were done.
It’s hard to look at that photo, and the big smile on Andy Burns’s face, and not … feel something.
If you can, help them out.
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Chris Graham
