Ryan McGarry started out as a high school cross country runner and track standout. He received scholarship offers from a number of schools. He eventually decided to attend Southern Methodist University, where, as a freshman during the cross country season, he had an extremely successful year, even scoring points for his team by placing in the Texas Relays.

Then the problems started. During the indoor track season, McGarry started to notice a decline in his performance. He began to feel fatigued all the time. At first, he and his coaches felt that he was most likely training too hard and would recover with some rest, but nothing seemed to help. By the time the outdoor track season came around in the spring, McGarry was experiencing a severe drop off in his performance.

"I was the worst runner on the team at that point," McGarry said.

Still unsure what was wrong, McGarry went into the summer assuming that, with a little rest and some hard training, he would regain his endurance. No matter how much training he did, though, he was unable to make any improvements. In the fall, he started to get fevers and sweat even when not engaged in physical activities.

He decided to go to the doctor and see if anything was wrong. The doctors found that he had developed a type of non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma in his bones. He had three different spots in his bones.

The treatment caused McGarry to lose much of his muscle mass and weight. Five months after treatment began, the spots started to recede. After eight months of treatment, he was finally in remission.

Once he had recovered, McGarry called Southern Methodist about his status on the team. The coach at Southern Methodist said that he was free to try out for the team, but could not give him a scholarship or even guarantee him a spot.

McGarry thought about it and decided to call around to the teams that had recruited him out of high school. One of those teams was Penn State. He called the men's track coach, Harry Groves, and asked if there was a spot on the team for him.

Groves said that if McGarry came, he would have a spot on the team. McGarry thought about it and decided to come to Penn State.

McGarry has become a central part of both the track team and the student campus. On the track, he has become a solid contributor and is still improving. Off of the track, he has become the president of the American Cancer Society's Colleges Against Cancer, which runs programs such as the relay for life and a service for Penn State students with cancer.