Rebecca Gutwin skillfully juggled classes, a work-study job and her first season as a member of the rowing team while a freshman last year at William Smith College

Gutwin also successfully battled breast cancer.

Perhaps it is no wonder that Gutwin -- described by head rowing coach Sandra Chu as one of the top students and athletes on the squad -- has survived a type of cancer with a mere 30 percent cure rate.

"She is definitely somebody who is always going to the maximum and you don't have to doubt that she's pulling her hardest all the time," Chu said.

Although breast cancer is the most common cancer among American women -- about one in eight women will develop the disease in her lifetime -- it rarely strikes women as young as Gutwin, who was just 18 at the time.

She discovered that a lump in her left breast was a malignant phyllodes tumor after seeing a specialist and undergoing a biopsy. The news that she had cancer caught Gutwin off guard, even though she knew it was a possibility after conversations with her doctor.

"We had discussed the two possibilities of what the lump could be before the biopsy, and my physician had stressed how rare it would be for the tumor to be malignant. I was suprised, then, when she called and said I had cancer. You just don't hear of that happening to many women my age," she said.

Gutwin endured a second surgery at the end of January 2003. That operation was followed by 61/2 weeks of daily radiation treatments.

Remarkably, Gutwin was able to maintain her regular schedule. Her days often began at 5 a.m. and she wouldn't return to her room until after dinner.

"I went to radiation every single week day during lunch time, which was the only free period I had that was consistent from day to day," she said. "I didn't have time to just relax like most of my classmates. I could have dropped a class or stopped working or even quit rowing, but everything I was doing was important to me, so I found a way to get it done."

Gutwin continued to honor her commitment to rowing in spite of the objection of her radiation oncologist, who was primarily concerned with Gutwin being able to maintain her energy level.

"A lot of his patients didn't even have enough energy to get through the day, let alone engage in extremely demanding physical exercise. I told him I'd deal with that issue when it arose," Gutwin said. "Crew was the most valuable part of my experience at school, and I couldn't imagine going through classes and work and treatments without being able to row and having my coach and teammates around for support."

Chu said that part of what makes Gutwin's story so special is that she is such a high achiever.

"The illness didn't really step her back in her course work or in her standing on the team," she said.

But, even though she managed to maintain a seemingly normal rhythm, the weeks of radiation treatments took an emotional toll on Gutwin.

"Radiation made me different from everyone else on campus because I was going through something they had no experience with. I often felt seriously alone as I ran through my day making minimal personal contact with people who meant a lot to me," she said.

Although she received encouragement from her teammates, it was the support of Christopher Stoer that meant the most to Gutwin. Stoer, who is no longer at the school, was an assistant coach with the program and the primary coach for the novice rowing team.

"When I look back on everything I had to deal with, I honestly can't imagine going through all of it without having Christopher there as a friend I could lean on when I desperately needed it," she said.

Today, Gutwin is cancer-free and is as healthy as if she'd never done battle with the disease.

"I have a scar due to the surgery and an area of slightly darkened skin due to the radiation," she said. "But, it feels more like a souvenir of everything I struggled through than a painful reminder of something I want to forget," she said.