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Briggs: Charley Bauer and the gift Ohio State basketball coach Jake Diebler will cherish forever

DAVID BRIGGS
The Blade
dbriggs@theblade.com
 
Feb 26, 2025

It takes a lot to break a Big Ten basketball coach out of their bubble during the ever-thickening fog of the season.

“Especially this time of year,” Ohio State’s Jake Diebler said, “things get moving so fast.”

But, every now and then, the real world interrupts.

And things don’t just slow down.

They stop entirely.

For Diebler, that standstill came last week with the passing of Charley Bauer, the 21-year-old Sylvania native and Ohio State nursing student whose nine-month battle with an insidious blood cancer revealed a profile in grace and strength and courage.

It was just last month that Diebler and his coaches were presented a stack of sneakers decorated by patients at Nationwide Children’s Hospital as part of the sport’s annual Coaches vs. Cancer event.

In a fortuitous twist, the Gibsonburg native chose the bedazzled kicks created by Charley.

No matter that the pair of Nike Air Force 1s were a Size 12 and he’s a 13. (“My guess is his feet were uncomfortable,” said Charley’s mom, Alyssa.)

Diebler wore them with pride in an 82-65 win over Iowa — a night that had Charley over the moon as she watched from the hospital miles away — then in the next game, and the next one.

He spent the first five minutes of a recent news conference talking not about basketball but the memory of Charley.

“It really forces you to take a second to pause and reflect,” Diebler said, his eyes red with emotion, “and it’s forced me to reflect on the honor it was to wear those shoes, and to get to know her mother and since her mother and father. … To hear even more of her story and the courage and the bravery that she showed, that’s just something I’ve been thinking about.”

He is in good company.

Charley’s passing has produced a blur of grief and reflection.

For her family — including mom, dad, and her brother, Jack — and so many friends, the pain is unimaginable.

But, of course, that’s because her life brought so much joy, and they intend to honor that legacy, too.

You should have seen her memorial service at Temple Shomer Emunim in Sylvania, where the prevailing attire of an overflow gathering was a scarlet Buckeyes sweatshirt and — yes, while we’re on the topic — sneakers.

Charley had an easy smile and a big heart, always thinking about others, from her earliest years — when you might have found her rescuing the worms from the driveway during a rainstorm — to her final moments awake. She assured her family, “It will be OK.”

The suggested funeral wear was just another of her gifts, heartbreaking as it was.

“She would never have wanted people to wear black,” Alyssa said. “Everything to her was happiness and Ohio State and people being comfortable.”

And so her obituary encouraged: “If you are an Ohio State fan, we encourage you to wear your scarlet and gray, put a string of buckeyes around your neck, and sit tall and proud. U of M fans, you are also invited and we will leave it to you to make the right choice of attire.”

Charley would have appreciated the wit, along with the noted absence of any maize and blue.

It’s hard to overstate her pride in Ohio State.

Charley so dreamed of being a Buckeye that she passed up bigger scholarships and direct admissions to nursing programs at other schools to compete for a spot at Ohio State. (She made it after her freshman year.) And when she received the diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia last May, she wanted to be where she planned to all along.

In a poignant twist, Charley was supposed to do her clinicals this year on the 12th floor of Nationwide Children’s Hospital — the hematology, oncology, and bone marrow transplant floor.

“When the school year started and she was a patient on that floor and her friends were in their red scrubs doing clinicals, it was serendipitous,” Alyssa said. “It was comforting for her to be with her friends at Ohio State.”

Her favorite Buckeyes teams helped, too.

Cancer took a lot from Charley, including her vision in one eye. But it never touched her spirit, including for her school.

On football gamedays, she and her beloved oncologist, Dr. Maggie Lamb, wore matching Ohio State sweatshirts, and she cheered on the Buckeyes with all her new 12th-floor friends. Their run to a national title was a thrill — “In all honesty,” Alyssa said, “looking forward to the games, that became an excitement and driving force” — as was the day in January when a stack of blank white Air Force 1s arrived at NCH.

Charley had three days to put her mark on one of the pairs the basketball coaches would wear, and she was all in.

While the hospital supplied paints and Sharpies, she was particular about her crafts. (“The Bauers had a small factory in [their room],” Lamb said with a smile.) She had a Bedazzler and just the right acrylic and glitter paint markers overnighted, then went to work, pouring hours into creating the coolest — and most kaleidoscopic — shoe you can imagine. The meticulous design included a shout-out to Floor 12, along with messages such as, “End Childhood Cancer.”

“She put all her effort into it,” Alyssa said. “She gave it so much thought. … She would go to an MRI, come back and do the shoes; go to a CT scan, come back and do the shoes; go to therapy, come back and do the shoes. All the nurses and doctors were coming in to see the progress. It was awesome. It meant a lot to her.”

Unfortunately, when Diebler and his coaches came to pick up the sneakers, the kids who decorated them could not be there, given the heights of flu season. Nor was Charley’s immune system well enough for her to make it when the hospital rented out two suites for that Iowa game.

But you can guess her reaction when she learned Diebler selected her sneakers, and her beaming delight when she saw them in action on TV, then received a video message from the coach after the game.

“I just want to say thank you,” Diebler said. “Your shoes are 1-0 so far. Thinking about you, praying for you. … Hopefully we can meet someday.”

Alyssa said the moments of kindness and light in her daughter’s final weeks meant everything.

After Charley passed, Diebler called Alyssa and her husband, Jeremy, and pledged to keep in touch. He also made a generous donation to Jack Bauer’s Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Student Visionaries of the Year campaign in honor of Charley.

“He’s the kindest soul,” Alyssa said of Diebler. “He’s just such a genuine man who offered a lot of support to our family. We’re very appreciative.”

As for the kicks, Diebler was prepared to give the sneakers to the Bauers, but Alyssa and Jeremy told him their daughter wanted the coach to keep them.

“I have a perfect spot for them in my office,” Diebler told Jeremy.

It was one more beautiful gift from Charley in a life full of them.

First Published February 26, 2025, 3:38 p.m.