Every day is a new day, and Courtney Larson is thankful for that. Hope springs eternal with the daily arrival of the sun. She moves forward by dwelling on the good.

There is much good in the Miami University sophomore’s life. She’s an exceptional student. She’s playing Division I college basketball, even after hurting her knee twice this season. She has friends and family who love her.

And her 47-year-old mother has breast cancer.

It’s all part of Larson’s world right now. The bad is obvious and can be overwhelming. Or not.

“I guess I’ve always been a little naive when it comes to certain things,” Larson said. “I think like, ‘Oh, that’ll never happen to me.’ But the fact that it’s hit home has made me realize I need to be a little more prepared going out into the real world and having to deal with these real issues.

“I could take one route and just feel bad all the time and really depressed, or I can take it for what it is and be strong for my mom and really positive. I think I’ve been able to come back and be positive with this whole thing and realize it’s happened for a reason. It’s made me grow up.”

The player

The 2012-13 season began with a thud for Larson, a 5-foot-9 point guard from Columbus, Ind. She missed the first five games of the year because of a preseason injury to her right knee.

“We had an open gym, and I was just playing around with my teammates,” Larson said. “I went up for a rebound and kind of got tangled up with a few players, and I came down and my kneecap just popped in and out.”

She worked hard to get back. The RedHawks had championship dreams right from the beginning, and she wanted to be a part of them.

Larson returned to action Nov. 28. She played for nearly two months, providing the kind of all-around play that the team desperately needed. And then it happened again.

On Jan. 17, while playing against Ohio at Millett Hall, Larson went down with another right knee injury. It was essentially the same injury with a strained MCL to boot. Seven more games would go by without her participation.

She’s been back since Feb. 16, aiding huge victories over Buffalo and Bowling Green. Miami will host a MAC First Round Tournament contest on Saturday at 2 p.m. in Millett Hall. The opponent in the contest will be either Kent State, Ohio or Northern Illinois. Regardless of the opposition, Larson will be contributing. She’s not a statistical giant, averaging less than three points per game. But her contributions go beyond the stat sheet.

“I would say that’s the kind of player I’ve always been,” Larson said. “I like to do a little bit of everything. I take pride in defense, and defense doesn’t always show up in the stat sheet. I’m not one to get like five steals a game or tons of rebounds, but I may get that one key offensive rebound. Or I might pass in for a layup, or get that one key deflection.”

MU coach Maria Fantanarosa said Larson’s explosiveness has been muted a bit by the knee problems, yet pointed out that it’s no coincidence that the RedHawks are surging with her back on the floor.

“Her basketball leadership is unbelievable,” Fantanarosa said. “She’s very smart. She understands the game. She understands tempo. She understands who’s hot on our team. She’s a little bit of that glue that keeps us together.”

The injury trail would’ve been difficult enough to cover, but there was another cross for her to bear. It was early fall when the phone rang. It was her mom.

The daughter

“I think it was on a Thursday or Friday,” Larson said. “She had told someone else and was worried they would tell me before she would. So she just called and told me.”

Denise Larson had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Her daughter heard the words and said she was devastated, but not shocked.

“We have a family history of it,” Courtney said. “My mom knew with her mom having gone through chemo and that kind of thing, she kind of knew what to expect. Maybe knowing what to expect isn’t the right way to put it. But we’ve been through it before.”

What could she do? Columbus isn’t all that far away from Oxford, but Larson was a college student trying to get ready for the upcoming basketball season. Parents want their children to live their lives.

Courtney, feeling helpless, decided to do two things. No. 1, she became even more immersed in her Christian faith.

“I feel like a stronger Christian in the fact that He’s testing me and putting me through all these different things, and how am I going to respond to them?” Larson said. “We’re a very Christian-oriented family. We kind of fall back on our faith, that God has a plan for us right now.”

She had always thought about donating a portion of her long blonde hair to Locks of Love, an organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children under 21 suffering from long-term medical hair loss.

With her mother’s cancer diagnosis, she turned her focus to the Pantene Beautiful Lengths program that partners with the American Cancer Society to provide wigs for women who can’t afford them. Larson recently had 8 1/2 inches of her hair cut off and donated to the program.

“I want to be able to help other women have that sense of, cancer doesn’t control me,” she said. “You can still feel beautiful and feel like a woman. I know my mom is very thankful for her wigs. She can go out in public and people don’t necessarily know that she has cancer. They don’t look at her like, ‘Oh, I feel bad for you.’ They still talk to her. She still is a person.”

Her mother is going through chemotherapy now. It will last into the spring and then … well, nobody really knows for sure. That’s the thing about cancer. It is big and nasty and likes to fight. All you can do is fight back and see where that takes you.

Denise Larson gets to Oxford to watch her daughter play when she can. She was there last weekend when Miami defeated Bowling Green in the Think Pink game that raised money in support of the fight against breast cancer.

“I feel like she’s missing out on things because I also have two younger brothers in high school, and they also play basketball,” Larson said. “One is in his senior year, so you know there’s a lot of things in your senior year that she wants to be a part of, but unfortunately she can’t right now.

“She’s like, enjoy these years now. You don’t get them back. I’ll be fine. It’s everything a mom’s going to say. But as her only daughter, it’s hard to have to be here and not there to support her in ways I want to be.”

The role model

Fantanarosa loves to win. It’s what she gets paid to do. Yet she considers it to be only part of her job.

She wants to recruit quality human beings. She wants them to have character. She wants them to grow into young women ready to take on the world.

She wants to coach people like Courtney Larson.

“She’s a very genuine and empathetic kid,” Fantanarosa said. “She is a bit of a perfectionist, whether it’s in the classroom or on the court, which makes her sometimes hard on herself. She feels helpless at times in regard to her mom, but you can’t not respect her and love her even more because she’ll come into the locker room every day and she’ll be ready to play.

“She never uses anything as an excuse. That strength and that character is a great example to all her teammates of who she is as a person. That’s someone you want to follow.”

Larson was the only player in the basketball program to have a 4.0 grade-point average during the fall semester. That may seem unbelievable considering what she’s been through, but it’s not unbelievable to her.

Work hard, have faith and keep going. She considers the alternatives unacceptable.

Larson sees the basketball court and the classroom as outlets. She loves the sport but views it through a different lens these days. It is, after all, just a game. Maybe there were times when it ruled her life, but no longer.

She thinks about her family history of breast cancer. Will she have to make that call to her child someday? It’s a question wtih no answer.

“This is just a wakeup call that I need to be taking it more seriously and make sure I’m getting the right checkups and doing my part,” said Larson, who’s majoring in kinesiology and hopes to become a physical therapist.

The daily struggle continues for her mom. All Courtney can do to help is express her love on a regular basis and be the kind of person every parent wants their child to be.

She vows to try, because she’s sure the sun will rise tomorrow. And who knows? It might just be a very good day.