Graduations are supposed to be joyous occasions, but that wasn’t the case for Kimani Harlan at her first such occasion.
“After my kindergarten graduation, we went out to dinner and my stomach hurt really bad,” Harlan said. “I didn’t want to eat anything, and it kind of progressed from there.”
“It” turned out to be Wilms’ tumor kidney cancer, a terrifying diagnosis for anyone, let alone a 5-year-old.
The good news is Harlan not only survived, but in this, her senior season, she is a driving force for the Hamilton West girls basketball team.
Through the Hornets’ first 12 games, the 5-10 leaper was among the Colonial Valley Conference leaders in rebounds (11.3 per game) and blocked shots (39).
“She gets her hands on everything,” coach Rob Farina said. “She elected to come back this year and be a captain, a leader. She’s been fantastic all year. Her basketball IQ has improved. I’m really proud of her.”
And she’s doing it all while playing with just one kidney.
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Obviously, it has been quite a journey.
When Harlan was unable to eat at her kindergarten celebration dinner, she was taken to the emergency room.
“They couldn’t find anything wrong with me, so I had to wait it out,” she said. “The doctors tested me for strep throat. That wasn’t what was wrong with me. A couple of days after that, we went to the hospital, where they found out something was wrong, and they transferred me to CHOP (Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania).”
That summer, a month before she turned 6, Harlan was diagnosed with cancer. And while she wasn’t old enough to understand the gravity of it all, her dad, Renwick Harlan, and her mom, Pamela Tye, sure did.
“Having cancer as a child is very scary for your family,” Kimani said. “You’re not really aware of what is happening. But you can read everybody around you and know that something’s not right.”
Indeed, something was very wrong.
Harlan endured a two-month stay at CHOP after they removed her right kidney and kept her there to recuperate. Upon going home, she began chemotherapy treatment, which lasted roughly 18 months.
“I was cancer-free in February of 2014,” Harlan said, “but I still had to frequently go back to the facility to make sure my creatinine levels were good and I was holding up well.”
She held up so well that Harlan got the best news possible last year.
“They told me,” she said, “that I didn’t have to go back to check on my creatinine levels anymore.”
Those are the kind of issues that might sideline many young athletes, but Tye was not about to let her daughter be treated differently.
“I had been playing soccer since I was four,” Harlan said. “When the time came to get back into sports, my mom was very adamant about me playing so I could feel like a regular kid. Essentially, nothing had changed except the kidney.”
That’s a pretty big “except,” but Kimani followed her mother’s advice.
“For me to go out there and play and feel it out was great,” she said. “I did have a couple of times where a ball got kicked into my stomach. I’d cry and get scared a little bit, but she helped me get back in the game and just pushed me.”
Her dad also felt she should play, “and he wanted me to be as safe as possible.”
She has remained safe and become a force for the Hornet hoopsters despite not starting the sport until ninth grade.
Her soccer career continued into high school, and Harlan played four years for Staci Priestley’s team. She also did track and field and is the scorekeeper for the boys’ lacrosse team.
“Basketball was just something I’ve been told, ‘Oh, you’re tall, you should play,’” she said. “I didn’t really get into it until freshman year. I guess it kind of stuck.”
Harlan learned some of the game’s nuances as a reserve on the JV team and enjoyed it. That summer, she played with West in a summer league. A strong summer gave her confidence that she could make varsity, although her coach wasn’t so sure.
“I did not expect her to make the jump from JV bench to varsity starter as a sophomore,” Farina said. “But we were down numbers. She made that jump because she rebounds and plays so hard on defense. She throws her body all over the court. She’s truly an old-school rebounder, where she just goes after that ball.”
Her first season, Harlan was third on the team in rebounds, averaging 4.7 per game, and second in blocked shots (19). Last year, she was second to Zairra Galloway in boards (7.1) and blocked shots (47) and was third on the Hornets in steals (41). This year, she has dominated underneath and is second to freshman Adisin Smith in steals.
Asked if her rebounding is more a case of positioning or aggressiveness, Harlan said, “I’ve been told I have a knack for finding the ball. Whenever I see the ball come off, I just try to be there. I box out really hard.”
She feels her blocked shots are more of a timing thing, and she still takes pride in her block against Princeton this year when a Little Tiger player had a breakaway and she caught up and rejected her shot at the rim.
“I’ve always loved defense more than offense,” said Harlan, who averages 4 points per game. “I think I really make a difference more on defense. On offense, I like to facilitate my teammates (with a team-high 12 assists). But on defense, that’s really where I hone in.”
Farina can’t say enough about Harlan’s intensity and how it rubs off on the rest of the team.
“She just cleans up the glass,” the coach said. “We were able to beat Robbinsville and West Windsor North in close games, and that’s due to her leadership. We beat Robbinsville in overtime in a game where we started three freshmen, a junior who was JV last year, and her. Kimani has been somebody who sort of wills our team in that direction of just competing.”
Harlan is not the biggest post player in the league, so she knows she must work hard. Farina makes sure her teammates take notice.
“There are times I will literally stop practice and say, ‘Why is it that our only senior is working her butt off and you guys aren’t stepping up?’” the coach said. “She’s not a verbal person; she’s a leader-by-example person, which is really cool. You will see her hustling her butt off in practice. In a game, she’s throwing her body around.
“She’s teaching the young girls hard work, and that’s the piece I appreciate most about her. I’m able to use her as an example. I point her out and say, ‘Don’t tell me you can’t run up and down the court when Kimani is busting her butt.’”
Hornets veteran trainer Jen Bauer has done more than just treat Harlan. She has helped provide her with the goal of being an athletic trainer.
Harlan goes to Mercer County Community College vocational school two periods a day, two times a week, to study exercise science. Her 4.67 weighted GPA puts her in the top 15 of West’s senior class, and she is looking to major in athletic training or kinesiology at a four-year school.
“Miss Jen was very influential in who I became as a student-athlete,” Harlan said. “Sophomore year, I suffered a shoulder subluxation. I had to rehab that a lot, and we took a lot of preventative measures to make sure it didn’t happen again. It flares up sometimes, so she gives me more stretches to do.”
Bauer’s influence and advice have set Harlan on a career path. For now, she serves as an inspiration to any athlete who knows her story.
“Knowing what she’s gone through, having one kidney, I think mom and dad and her could have made the decision that, ‘We’re going to be so protective of her, we’re not going to play contact sports,’” Farina said. “The fact she’s got the courage to come out there and be a three-sport player and say, ‘This isn’t going to hold me back in anything,’ that’s the impressive piece.”
And Harlan takes none of it for granted.
“I feel very blessed I was able to come as far as I can and give glory to God, because without Him, where would we be?” she stated. “So for me to be able to come this far, a three-sport athlete, I’m doing very well in the classroom, I think that just proves how my parents raised me and how resilient I am.”
Not to mention how courageous she is.
Kimani Harlan makes a block against Steinert. (Photo by Amanda Ruch.),
