When doctors told Erik “Big E” Elken that the hip pain he couldn’t shake wasn’t another rugby injury – it was a rare and highly aggressive Stage 4 sarcoma, he waited two days to tell his coach.

The University of South Carolina Gamecocks were playing that weekend and the ever-thoughtful Scholastic All-American didn’t want to be a distraction.

Big E broke the news to Coach Roberts on Sunday: He had an 8-pound tumor ­– the size of a newborn – on his femur and he was flying home to Berwyn for treatment.