Stu Bykofsky: It’s not about ta-tas or ra-ras, but hope and love

By Stu Bykofsky
Daily News Columnist
Philadelphia Daily News
May 3, 2010

CJ WAS OUT having his eighth and final chemotherapy treatment for cancer in his chest when I arrived at the three-bedroom house at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac in Bensalem.

CJ is a 10-year-old chocolate Lab. The family’s other pet is Sammy, a 13 1/2-year-old, 100-pound Malamute, who was entertaining company.

As was Marylou Tammaro, a retired Eagles cheerleader who had finished chemotherapy for breast cancer six months earlier.

The prognosis for both CJ and Marylou is good. Marylou is now cancer-free (knock wood) and will run on Mother’s Day in her first Susan G. Komen Philadelphia Race for the Cure. She will be joined and supported by Team Ra-Ras for Ta-Tas.

(Translation: Ra-Ra is what cheerleaders do. The team is comprised of former Eagles cheerleaders. Ta-Tas? If you are old enough to read this, you can figure that out for yourself.)

Which leads me to the relationship between cheerleaders and breasts, a touchy subject. (For me, it is a “no-touchy” subject.)

Jokes can be made now because the anguish is behind Marylou, who underwent a double mastectomy as a life-insuring precaution. That decision was difficult – highly personal and emotional.

Breasts are “part of being a woman, part of who I am. You want to look nice in your clothes,” says Marylou, 55.

“I am not my breasts, but you still miss them.”

Marylou’s first cheer year was 1972; she was head choreographer from 1984 to ’96, then director until 2001. She’s now a medical secretary.

From age 40, Marylou had regular mammograms. Occasionally the film seemed to show something, but those were always false alarms. So when she was called back a year ago, it didn’t worry her.

When the call came, she was at the Acme on “cheap-chicken Monday,” with her husband, Don, 55, who works in construction.

The call, on April 27, wasn’t an all-clear.

“Shock” was her reaction. “A numbness,” while “the ‘Chicken Dance’ was playing on the P.A.”

The next few months were filled with fear and tears. Don and daughters Christine, 36, and Melissa, 30, were as close as fingers as Marylou went through it. During chemo, Don “sat through every minute of it with me,” Marylou says.

Anyone who has walked this path can tell you about the nausea, the lost hair, the metallic taste like a nickel in your mouth, the chilling fear and sometimes despair.

Cheerleaders are optimistic by nature, Marylou tells me. Now, with Sammy lying at her feet, she concentrates on the positive.

While Marylou was in the midst of her crisis, Maggie Thrush Hammond, 38, was working on something else. The former Eagles cheerleader (1993-99) was organizing a reunion of Eagles cheerleaders – decades upon decades of them.

Last September, using Marylou’s records and Facebook, Maggie assembled a “rowdy group” for a reunion on the Moshulu, which led to the “girls” (as they call each other) organizing into the Cheerleaders Chapter of the NFL Alumni Philadelphia Chapter, headed by former Eagles quarterback Joe Pisarcik. Maggie is the membership chair.

If you’re wondering, as I did, why it’s “NFL” and not E-A-G-L-E-S Alumni, that’s because the Eagles are super-protective of their brand.

These are high-character people – many teachers, businesswomen, lawyers. The Eagles hire Michael Vick, but won’t spread their wings over former cheerleaders?

“I think the work the alumnae do is great,” says Eagles spokeswoman Pamela Browner White, but “the current cheerleaders represent us in the community with more than 350 appearances a year.”

Maggie, a nurse at Jefferson, has a 4-year-old son, Brady, a developer husband, Cory, 42, and 300 pounds of dogs – Brandy, 7, and Bronson, 8. She does have a life, thank you, but found time along with some other “girls” to unite 300 former Eagles cheerleaders, primarily to work for charities.

“We weren’t sure Marylou was going to make it to the reunion because she had chemo that Monday, and the party was Saturday,” Maggie says.

But Marylou made it. “It was very emotional” because “Marylou is our inspiration.

“We wanted her to feel the love everyone has for her and that’s when we decided to do Komen,” says Maggie. Credit her for the (trademarked) Team Ra-Ras for Ta-Tas name.

“We do focus primarily on caring for kids,” Maggie says, but “we did deviate from that for the Susan G. Komen – because we had so many alumnae who were affected.” Ten are breast-cancer survivors.

“The alumnae cheerleaders have just been phenomenal,” says Marylou, dabbing her eyes with a Kleenex handed her by Don. “Less than a year old and they’ve made their mark, a wonderful group of women.

“I’ll do the race every Mother’s Day.”