In the spring of 1999, Danny Heinsohn’s world was pretty much like every other college senior about to graduate. He was excited to earn and receive his diploma. He was even a little more excited for an upcoming summer trip to Europe all while starting to think about the ‘real world’ and beginning a professional career.
And then, his world got a little too real. About a week before graduation, he woke up with a headache. It didn’t go away.
“I was 23 and ignorant. I thought I was indestructible, but I kept waking up with these recurring headaches,” Heinsohn says. “The day after graduation, the headaches were worse than ever so my dad and I went to the ER and after two-and-a-half hours of scans, I met my dad in the waiting room where he said, ‘it doesn’t look like you’re going to Europe.’”
After three craniotomies, including the third one at UCLA medical center, Heinsohn was diagnosed with Primary Central Nervous System Lymphoma and told the survival rate for that type of cancer was five years. Additionally, he was told the cancer could eventually affect his motor function and that doctors could not perform surgery on his brain in efforts to remove any of the cancerous tissue.
To say the least, his future went from one with all the dreamy expectations of a newly graduated college student to one that was uncertain. That’s when Heinsohn was referred to Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland. It’s also when Heinsohn began to get some better news about his condition. OHSU had pioneered a treatment to fight Danny’s condition of Blood Brain Barrier (BBB) disruption. In Layman’s terms, a sugar solution opens the BBB for a period of time that allows doctors to administer treatment. The process was revolutionary as doctors had previously struggled to get past the BBB and get treatment to the brain.
After a year of cancer hell, it was July 2000 and Heinsohn was in remission.
“It was three or four months into the dot-com recession,” Heinsohn recalls. “There were no jobs. At that junction in life, I didn’t know if I had much time. I just knew I wanted to pursue things I enjoyed. I love sports and music. I met the principal founder of Access Pass and Design. He took me under his wing as a mentor and taught me the ropes about the concert touring industry. It’s a long story, but three years later I had built an impressive portfolio of companies. I had worked with the New York Yankees, the Los Angeles Dodgers, 12 NFL properties, 100 DI and D2 college programs, and major corporate brands like Nike, Red Bull, and Google.”
During that time, Heinsohn got into endurance sports. He began competing in 100-mile bike rides for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. His physical well-being had become a huge driver for him.
“I wanted to make fitness my foundation. That was very prevalent for me. I wanted to get as far away as possible from cancer and I knew that pushing my body to its physical limitations would be a key to long-term survivorship,” Heinsohn says.
The endurance bike rides morphed into a passion for marathon runs and ultimately into triathlons. However, there was more to the grueling fitness challenges than the competitions. He used them as tools for fundraising.
For Year 10 of his remission, Heinsohn said he wanted to raise $10,000 in his first Ironman triathlon event. While setting some fundraising goals at lunch one day, a friend recommended he should fundraise for a scholarship fund.
Little did he know that lunch and conversation would serve as the impetus for Heinsohn’s My Hometown Heroes foundation. Heinsohn did indeed start up a scholarship fund, which awarded its first scholarship in 2011. After some slow going in the first few years of fundraising—by Heinsohn’s standards—he knew he wanted to do more. He started My Hometown Heroes, a national scholarship fund for college bound cancer survivors with a mission to help bridge the gap between cancer and college one scholarship at a time. He also left the corporate world to focus on MHH.
Like most everything else in Heinsohn’s goal-oriented world, he’s stayed true to his word. By all accounts MHH is a success. In a recent interview, Heinsohn proudly pointed out that MHH will have awarded nearly $350,000 in scholarships since the foundation’s inception 14 years ago. He said while many scholarship recipients are local, and attend the University of Nevada, that’s far from a universal theme. He added MHH recipients have enrolled at Boston College, Duke, Emory, UCLA and Purdue among others.
The foundation is helping youthful cancer survivors not only get an education, but Heinsohn’s organization is changing lives.
“What the cancer diagnosis did for me was make me believe in a sense of community—not just be there for other people but believe in other people,” said Garrett Winkelmaier, a 2013 MHH scholarship winner, who now sits on the foundation’s board of directors. “No one gets through a cancer diagnosis alone. One of the things Danny has done, and that I really like, is any kid who applies for a scholarship, regardless of whether you are chosen, is you become a part of the My Hometown Heroes community. That’s one thing I’ve really learned through Danny.”
Winkelmaier was not alone in his praise of Heinsohn. Haley Carrol was a four-year scholarship recipient after fighting off Burkitt’s Lymphoma, a diagnosis that came just before the start of her senior year at Reno High School.
“Danny is amazing,” said Carroll, who is now a pediatric oncology nurse. “When I first received a scholarship and met him, I knew we’d be good friends. He came to my wedding last year. I have a cancer-free party every year and he comes to that. The support from him, it’s helped me get through school, become a nurse and get to where I am today.”
Fighting off cancer – check. Relearning fine motor skills and reteaching his brain countless everyday tasks – check. Earning a thriving career in the corporate world and building a successful non-profit foundation from scratch – check, check. So, what is next for Heinsohn, a 1994 Reed High graduate?
“After battling cancer, you think about living life with intention,” Heinsohn said. “If you know you only have a limited amount of time, that puts a lot of things in perspective. One of my favorite self-proclaimed mantras I manifested during chemo is ‘I’d rather live one year in excellence than a lifetime of mediocrity.’
“I’ve done a lot of stuff. I’ve done the ironman. I’m a published author and speaker. I’ve flown in an F16 and become a noted philanthropist. But I’ve decided to celebrate my 25 years since my diagnosis. I’m going to do 25 [fundraising] moments. For instance, I’m going to my very first MLB Opening Day between the Yankees and Rangers [next spring]. I’m going on my first turkey hunt. I’ve got about 10 moments so far. I want to get the word out there and tell people, try to get sponsors. Each moment will sponsor a scholarship.”
The next year will come and go, and with it, all 25 of Heinsohn’s moments. Still, while those may pass relatively quickly, you can bet each and every one will make an impact on someone forever.
“I was 23 and ignorant. I thought I was indestructible."
"I wanted to get as far away as possible from cancer."