'I got that drive from my mom': Eastern York's Dani Krohn lost her mother to cancer, but her family and soccer team have battled on.

May 09, 2009 (York Daily Record - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- EAYO | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- As an assistant girls' soccer coach at Eastern York High School, Dave Krohn knows what it takes for young athletes to succeed at the varsity level.

Skill and speed. Strength and agility.

All those physical qualities will be on display Monday night when the Golden Knights open up the District 3 Class AA tournament on the road against Donegal.

During her time as a youth coach with the Eastern York Soccer Club, Krohn's wife, Leslie, mentored many of the girls who went on to play for the school's varsity squad.

Sure, she taught fundamentals, but the drive and determination -- the mental aspects of athletics and her life -- are what shine through today in her former pupils.

"The most impressive part of her coaching was the fact that she never took the easy way out," Dave Krohn said of his wife of 18 years, who died more than five months ago. "She would find the toughest competition and enter tournaments knowing full well they wouldn't fare well on the scoreboard.

"But the experience would make them better in the end. It would help them grow as players, as young ladies. That's what really molded my daughter, Dani, and her teammates."

--*

Leslie Krohn was a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a coach. This weekend marks the first Mother's Day without her; she lost her seven-year battle with cancer back on Nov. 18, at age 42.

The former Lower Windsor Township resident left behind family and numerous friends who miss her terribly every day, but her fighting spirit lives on.

"I didn't realize it right way, but other people have noticed that I got that drive from my mom," said Dani Krohn, a junior at Eastern York. "As a coach, she looked for us to get better, not necessarily by beating teams 9-0. She wanted us to lose to better teams, if we had to, so we could improve. And that came from her mentality -- to fight.

"She showed that through her life in soccer and in the battle

against cancer. She believed in facing hard competition and getting better, no matter what."

And the Krohn family has leaned on the sport Leslie loved so much to help them through the toughest of times.

"We live and breathe soccer as a family," Dave Krohn said. "It was something we could do together. All of the children played. Leslie and I both coached. We're really a family of soccer nuts."

Leslie's oldest daughter, Samantha Mittel, played for Eastern York's varsity team. Her son, Tim, played the game and also served as a manager for the girls' squad his dad helped guide.

Golden Knights head coach Chrissy Crumling said the Krohn family has served as an inspiration for all of those associated with the program.

"Dave and Dani

never sugarcoated anything, but they never used what was happening as an excuse," Crumling said. "There's no room for excuses in their family.

"They were all going to fight the cancer and beat it. That's how they lived through it -- and that's how they continue to live on today."

--*

In early 2001, Leslie Krohn was first diagnosed with an aggressive type of uterine cancer located on the cervix. The combination was extremely unique.

"She had a hysterectomy and immediately underwent radiation treatments," Dave Krohn said. "Doctors thought they had contained it, and for two years we thought it had been taken care of.

"But it had spread into her lymph system, so for three or four years she had intermittent chemotherapy and more radiation to keep it under control, so to speak. But chemo took a toll on her blood counts, and it got to a point where she just couldn't continue the chemo. It all progressed very quickly from there."

Telling the children the treatments had to stop -- and that there wasn't much left to be done -- was the hardest thing Dave Krohn ever had to do.

"But fortunately the support we got from the soccer community was overwhelming," he said. "To have so many people talk to us about it, share their concerns and provide us with support. We never had to worry about rides for the kids getting to games.

"We had an awful lot of dinners provides to us by the Eastern York soccer parents and people we knew from soccer. We knew we were well-fed and taken care of. It made everything easier, knowing how many people cared."

--*

Leslie Krohn did all she could not to miss a game as long as she wasn't in the hospital. Her husband would drive her down the hill at Eastern's field. If the weather was bad, she would watch from the concession stand.

And after she had died, family, friends and complete strangers came back to that concession stand last month to help raise money for an Eastern York Dollars for Scholars program scholarship that will bear her name.

During a game against Fairfield -- one in which Dani scored a pair of goals -- a fund-raising effort generated more than $1,000. In fact, more than $4,000 has been raised so far in Leslie's name. A deserving Eastern York senior soccer player will receive a scholarship in June.

"It's just overwhelming," Dave Krohn said. "Knowing so many people loved Leslie and our family was a wonderful feeling for us in a bad time."

--*

The necklace kept flopping out of Dani Krohn's jersey.

It was a very warm day for mid-April, and Krohn wasn't wearing a T-shirt under her Eastern York uniform top, so the necklace kept popping out.

"Dani asked me if I would wear it for her," Crumling said. "She wears it all the time, and I suspected it was something significant, something related to her mom."

"It's a dragonfly necklace. My mom loved dragonflies," Dani Krohn said. "I wear it for every game, and she's always in my thoughts.

"When I'm fighting through the ups and downs of the game, she's with me. And it doesn't need to be Mother's Day for me to be thinking about her."

dave@ydr.com; 771-2063

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