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LPGA STATE FARM CLASSICJuly 16, 2008Beth BaderAaron TheobaldSPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS ASHLEY CUSHMAN: Beth and Aaron, thanks for coming in and joining us today. As you might know, Beth and Aaron won the Stanford International as a team duo. Aaron is local, he's from Bloomington, Illinois; Beth is also from Iowa, so kind of some regional ties to the area. Great story. You might have had a chance to read the background information on. Aaron is former patient of St. Jude. Stanford benefitted St. Jude, their Eagles for that program. At this time I'll turn it over to them to talk about catching back up and having a chance to play here at the State Farm Pro-Am. BETH BADER: Yeah, I had contacted Kate Peters a couple months ago, and I thought it would be a great thing for Aaron to come down and join us int he Pro-Am. It actually worked out really good, and I'm glad he's here and we can reconnect. It's kind of like déjàvu all over again, so it's good to be back with him. I think we're going to have a fun day today. AARON THEOBALD: Yeah. I'm really looking forward to it. It's been a long time since I've seen you and talked to you, so it should be a good day. ASHLEY CUSHMAN: Have you guys stayed in touch much the past couple of months? BETH BADER: Yeah, we'll text every now and then. It's just been a crazy last come months for me, but you we definitely stay in touch via texting. I'm sure we'll probably never lose touch after this. ASHLEY CUSHMAN: Right. And Beth, we know that you've been playing multiple tour events the last couple of months, but Aaron you were just talking about some changing coming up in your life here. AARON THEOBALD: Yeah, I'm actually moving to Florida in about a week, week and a half. BETH BADER: You didn't tell me that. AARON THEOBALD: Yeah. West Palm Beach. BETH BADER: We're going to be neighbors. Oh, good. AARON THEOBALD: Yeah, I do that in about a week and a half. One of the guys I met down in Miami actually gave me this amazing offer. He actually got an apartment for me on a golf course I can practice at whenever. He told me I would play just a little bit of rent, wouldn't be much. But he also set me up with an office job. You remember Ken Rush, right? BETH BADER: Yeah. AARON THEOBALD: So yeah, pretty exciting. Q. How are you guys going to do today? That's the big thing. BETH BADER: Have you been practicing? AARON THEOBALD: Every day. BETH BADER: I think we'll do all right then. Q. The Pro-Am down in Florida, again, from what I've read or heard it was just kind of totally by chance. AARON THEOBALD: Yes. Q. Which most Pro-Ams are, I guess. AARON THEOBALD: Yeah. I had actually gotten the call to come down there like a week before it happened. They had an opening in it, and the surgeon that did my hip replacement actually thought of me when he heard there was an opening in it. Gave me a call, and then, yeah, us getting paired up was just sort of by chance. BETH BADER: Absolutely. That's sort of how they do it. I am sure there are a few groups that are staged, but meeting Aaron the first -- I didn't even know anything about his background until we started playing and I asked him how he got in. Then to find out he was a patient at St. Jude's and a leukemia survivor, our stories just kind of intertwined. It was an amazing thing how it all worked out, and obviously amazing couple days with Aaron. I still talk about it all the time. Everybody stops in and asks me about it. We have our nice little bling-bling watches to show around. It was a really cool, cool week. Q. The bling-bling watch, was that for winning the Pro-Am? BETH BADER: Yes, we got some nice watches from Audemars Piguet, and I think a couple of airline tickets on United. Yeah, we walked away with some good prizes. Q. Obviously cancer touches so many people's lives, if not their own family, friends or whatever. I guess you two are an example. Different situations but the same thing. I mean, is there just kind of a bond there that maybe you kind of know what each other has gone through, at least to a certain extent? BETH BADER: Yeah. I think for me, and I don't speak for Aaron, but just meeting him knowing what he's gone through. You know, he had his young childhood kind of taken away in high school. I mean, in high school you want to be with your friends and buddies and he was in the hospital. So it's a cool thing. Aaron gets a second chance and has he's been living it up right. I feel like after my mom passed away -- obviously it was tough, but I'm getting a second chance being able to get the word out about pancreatic cancer and cancer in general. So, yeah, I think our stories definitely intertwined. I think we'll be friends forever. Q. You were diagnosed at 16? AARON THEOBALD: 15. Q. What is your status right now? AARON THEOBALD: In a remission. I still have to go down once a year for checkups and everything, but, yeah, everything's been good for four years since my last treatment I think. Q. You go down to St. Jude's... AARON THEOBALD: Yeah, it's in Memphis. Q. You mentioned earlier you had to have, what did you say, a hip replacement? AARON THEOBALD: Yeah, I've had my right hip replaced twice. The first one shattered in about 13 pieces and they had to go in and replace it again. Q. Is that the result of chemo? BETH BADER: From the steroids they give. They cause deterioration in my hips and my knees as well. Q. Obviously you're here today ready to play. AARON THEOBALD: Yeah. Q. Ready to go, right? AARON THEOBALD: Yeah, doesn't really affect my swing anymore. BETH BADER: Yeah, didn't when we were in Florida. Q. What's your handicap right now? AARON THEOBALD: Right now I've worked it down to about 6 or 7. Started out at the beginning of this year about 10 or 11. Since I've been able to practice every day I've gotten it down. Q. Moving to Florida, do you have any golf aspirations? AARON THEOBALD: It would be a dream if I could move up a little bit farther. I think it might be great to get into one of the mini tours. BETH BADER: I think the main thing about Florida for the guys is there are so many mini tours down there. There's probably four or five. In fact, I've played in a few with the guys to warm up for my season. So you know, that's -- there's a lot of young guys with Aaron's caliber that can go down there and at least stay competitive and, you know, have a chance to compete and win some money and win some cash. So, yeah, the opportunities down in Florida are just amazing for guys. He'll have a lot of opportunities if he wants, yeah. Q. You were on an athlete in high school, baseball? AARON THEOBALD: Yeah. Q. When you go through something like this and you're able to go back out and still do some kind of sport, is it just a different feeling when you go out? People say after you go through something like that you don't take things for granted anymore. AARON THEOBALD: Right. I definitely enjoy it a little bit more I think now. It had always been there, and since it got taken away from me for a few months and I wasn't sure I was going to be able to come back at all, I definitely enjoy it more now. Q. Your foundation, in terms of amount of money and just the awareness you've been able to generate, has it surpassed what you -- you never want to be satisfied. BETH BADER: I think with what you said it's more the awareness that we've gotten out. I obviously come from a small town, Eldrich, Iowa, and we're lucky to raise ten or twelve thousand each time we have a golf outing. But it's the awareness and the e-mails that my sister receives from all over the United States, saying, I saw about your foundation. My grandmother just passed way from pancreatic cancer, or my brother or my sister, and I think it's great what you guys are doing. So that part is quite amazing. As far as funding is concerned, I wish we were making a million dollars a year for the University of Iowa. Can that happen? Absolutely. Will it? I sure hope so. The community that's supporting us and our foundation, there's been about ten or fifteen family friends that do it for free. That's what neat about our foundation, is it's absolutely a grass roots organization. I know that every penny goes to our researcher at university of Iowa, because we write the check and I hand it to him personally. But once more money gets involved you tend to get bigger. I don't want to get bigger per se, I just want to make more money. I want it to stay small as far as people helping out and that is concerned. I know there is another organization Pan-Can. They do a lot of Washington D.C. things like that, so they have to pay their staff. I would love to be able to pay my staff, but I think the money needs to go to research. There's kind of pros and cons about that. Yeah, I want to make a lot of money, but I want to keep it small. Q. Aaron, I guess St. Jude's has affiliates or whatever in Peoria, and I think they benefit from this tournament. AARON THEOBALD: Right. Q. Does that maybe make coming down here for you even more extra special, too? AARON THEOBALD: Yeah. I spent a lot of time over in the one in Peoria, too. I know everybody over there, too. Yeah, it definitely makes it more special. Q. Like you said, you're moving to Florida. I was going to say you could play together here next year. You think there will be more opportunities, hopefully, whether it's a Pro-Am or whatever? BETH BADER: Oh, yeah. I think there's will be a lot of opportunities. I think that's awesome that he's coming down there. He said he's living just outside of West Palm Beach. I just bought a place down there, so I've got a couple golf courses we can play at. I think we'll be playing a lot. We'll be battling it out for sure. Q. (No microphone.) BETH BADER: Yes, absolutely. Definitely was totally by chance. I didn't know anything about Aaron, what he went through with his cancer. Then just slowly playing golf that day I found out about what he had went through, and I spoke with him about my foundation. Yeah, it was definitely a chance meeting that turned into being something pretty special. Q. (No microphone.) BETH BADER: We'll have fun today, and playing with the State Farm people and Aaron, we'll have a good time. It will be a nice day. Hopefully we'll stay not too warm. Probably under the umbrella's most of the day. Q. (No microphone.) BETH BADER: No. No serious today. Just fun today. Q. The thing down in Florida, was it on No. 18, could you talk about that again, what the situation was? BETH BADER: I want to know what was going through your head. I think I kind of know. AARON THEOBALD: The first thing was all the people that were sitting in the grandstands. I was like, if I put this in the water it's going to be so embarrassing. They will be like, what's this kid doing? BETH BADER: I had your back. AARON THEOBALD: Yeah, you did. Beth just looked at me and was like, if you feel comfortable with it, it's your time. Go for it. BETH BADER: Yeah. That's it. He didn't hit driver. It's a Par 5. Q. This is the tee shot. BETH BADER: Yeah. It's not really a hole that you need to hit driver. It's got great length. AARON THEOBALD: I hit 3-wood off the tee just intentionally to let myself back so I wouldn't be tempted to go for it. I pushed it right. BETH BADER: Yeah, and it kind of rolls down the hill. He only had about 175. It's on island green. It's not an easy shot to get there. AARON THEOBALD: Those greens are really hard and fast. I had to land it on the front and let it roll back. If I landed it too far forward it was going to jump off and go into the water. BETH BADER: I gave him his target, a trashcan over there. I said, Just feel yourself swinging right down at that trash can. It never left the trashcan. It was just on that line and rolled down to four feet, so it was cool. I had to turn around, because I mean I saw him and I looked over at his mother and I did one of these. It was really awesome. Really cool. Q. Any other like friends or family members down here today? AARON THEOBALD: My good friend, Cole Sharp he's actually the big reason why I've been able to work my handicap down a few strokes. He's been doing a lot of work with my swing. He's back there in the Mizuno hat. Q. Bloomington guy? AARON THEOBALD: I actually played with him at ICC. He lives in Bloomington now. End of FastScripts |
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