[Deathwatch] Diane Geppi-Aikens, Loyola Lacrosse Coach, 40

[Deathwatch Central <cdw@slick.org>]

Hundreds Remember Loyola Lacrosse Coach
Thu Jul 3, 6:54 PM ET
By DAVID GINSBURG, AP Sports Writer

BALTIMORE - Diane Geppi-Aikens was remembered Thursday as a passionate
lacrosse coach, a loving daughter and a devoted mother.

Geppi-Aikens, who guided the Loyola women's lacrosse team to the NCAA
semifinals this year while waging a heroic fight against brain cancer,
died Sunday. She was 40.

Hundreds of athletes, friends and family members packed the Cathedral
of Mary Our Queen to say farewell to a woman whose courageous battle to
survive inspired virtually everyone who knew her.

"It's definitely hard, but this is a celebration of her life and her
legacy," Suzanne Eyler, captain of the lacrosse team, said after the
two-hour ceremony. "We're not looking at this as a loss, because she's
touched so many lives. She made everyone around her a better person."

Geppi-Aikens coached all but one game of the Greyhounds' 2003 season
from a wheelchair after treatment for the tumor partially paralyzed her
left side.

Loyola entered the NCAA tournament as the No. 1 seed with a
regular-season record of 17-2, but lost to Princeton in the semifinal
round.

The Rev. Harold Ridley, the president of Loyola University, said
Geppi-Aikens "was a daughter, mother, friend and mentor."

"What a gift it has been to have Diane Marie Geppi-Aikens as part of
our lives. We will never forget her energy, her spirit, her will,"
Ridley said.

Geppi-Aikens was a four-year starter for the Greyhounds' lacrosse team
and played volleyball for the school before graduating in 1984. She was
Loyola's volleyball coach from 1984-1990 and became lacrosse coach in
1989.

The mother of four led the Greyhounds to the NCAA tournament 10 times
and the national semifinals seven times in her 15 seasons.

"I've been in athletics a long time, and never have I met a coach who
was more totally about her family and players," Loyola athletic
director Joe Boylan said after the service.