Pierce Ali

American teenager diagnosed with cancer in 1994 who died in November 1996 after a two-year battle. With poor odds, she persevered through a grueling chemotherapy regime that was picked up by the local and national media, in an attempt to beat the devil. Her courage, her family and her story moved everyone who knew of her. Her dad, John Pierce, was a runner who left the sport to spend as much time as he could with her while she was in the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, along with his wife Anna and their other two kids. He unexpectedly died of a heart attack less than a year later. Read less