Billy Cronin took a pass on the wing, beyond the 3-point line, sized up his defender and released the jumper in perfect form, just like his favorite player Jason Tatum of the Boston Celtics.
The ball hit nothing but net and Cronin ran up the court pumping his fist as he got set on defense.
The basket was made in a June summer-league high school game at Pima Community College on Friday. Although the points do not go to his career total, and Canyon del Oro is not playing toward a state championship in the tournament, the 3-pointer carried plenty of significance.
Every shot, every opportunity to be on the court, is cherished.
“At the beginning of my year in eighth grade, around August 6 (2024), is when the tumor was found, and it was September 13, at around 9 p.m. when I was playing video games in my room and my mom came in screaming and crying that I had cancer,” Cronin recalled of when he was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a form of bone cancer, in his right foot.
The doctors determined that amputation of his lower leg was necessary in addition to chemotherapy treatments.
The angst from that time is obviously vivid in his mind, but Cronin is moving forward from the critical illness, responding actively, trying to make more pleasurable memories for the rest of his life.
“At the beginning (after the amputation), I didn’t think I was going to play basketball again,” Cronin said. “My surgeon said, ‘You just got to accept that you’re not going to play,’ and I didn’t want to accept it, so I kept doing anything I could, doing everything I was able to do to play.
“I’ve got my body almost back to where it used to be.”
His insurance only provided a basic prosthetic leg for walking. Cronin need an athletic prosthetic leg, a blade, to continue his basketball journey.
His mother Georgina organized a Go Fund Me fundraiser and more than $35,000 was raised to go toward the prosthetic leg which Cronin wears while playing with the Dorados. He said the prosthetic can feel heavy at times, but he is able to carry the weight literally and figuratively.
As a freshman last season, Cronin became an inspirational leader for the junior varsity and varsity teams because of his perseverance.
“I still have scans and follow-ups, but everything’s fine,” he said.
Canyon del Oro coach Jason Dickens, who played at Loyola Marymount from 2002 to 2004 after a stellar career at Salpointe, was impressed by Cronin’s basketball ability when he first watched him play.
What really caught his eye was Cronin’s attitude.
“When he first showed up to the gym, the first question he had for us was if he could play JV,” Dickens said. “He was a freshman. To be honest, I was like, ‘How’s he gonna do this? How’s he even going to play? From that day on, he never has asked for anything exceptional.
“He’s had moments where the leg wasn’t fitting right. It was hurting him, and he’d still run the miles. We had a two-mile run, and we had to get it timed. I told him to go to the side. He looked at me like I just insulted him, like, ‘What’s different about me?’ That’s how he carries himself about it. Not one other person talks about it, and it’s turned into a team morale boost, where we’re like this kid’s diving on the floor, playing like that. We don’t have excuses like other programs have, or I’ve been a part of. Nobody’s out there complaining. Just a great kid.”
His father William is from Massachusetts and grew up a Larry Bird fan. His love for the Celtics rubbed on the younger Cronin.
In January, Make-a-Wish Massachusetts set up a VIP visit by Billy to the Basketball Hall of Fame and a trip to Boston’s TD Garden to sit courtside for warm-ups before watching the Celtics take on the Toronto Raptors from a suite. He met Tatum and other members of the team and got plenty of autographs.
This occurred nearly a year after Arizona honored Billy during a basketball game at McKale Center on Feb,. 27, 2025, only three months after the amputation.
Banner Children’s Diamond Children’s Medical Center celebrated the event that included Cronin and another teenager being honorary prom king and queen for the game against Utah.
Cronin’s young life has been filled with sports.
He started playing Little League baseball at 4 years old. He pitched for his middle school team.
His competition in basketball began at YMCA when he was only 6. He played for multiple club teams and his middle school before playing for the Dorados’ JV team last year. At 6-foot-1 at the time of his cancer diagnosis, he believed his height could lead to a productive hoops career.
He continues to function with that goal in mind.
What drives him are other youths who have critical ailments.
“The kids who can’t do it motivate me,” he said. “When I was in the hospital for cancer, I saw those kids begging to get out. I got the chance to, so I wanted to do it for them.”
He also wants to convey his message of hope through how he plays basketball.
“I want to let other kids know to just have a positive attitude,” he said. “I mean, if you just think you can get through it, you can get through it. That’s what I thought every time, because I had 60-40 fighting chance, which is good compared to a lot of other kids.
‘You’ve just got to think you can beat it. If you have a negative attitude, it makes it way more difficult.”
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ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He is a former Arizona Daily Star beat reporter for the Arizona basketball team, including when the Wildcats won the 1996-97 NCAA title. He has also written articles for CollegeAD.com, Bleacher Report, Lindy’s Sports, TucsonCitizen.com, The Arizona Republic, Sporting News and Baseball America, among many other publications. He has also authored the book “The Highest Form of Living”, which is available at Amazon. He became an educator in 2016 and is presently a special education teacher at Sunnyside High School in the Sunnyside Unified School District.
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