'I was focused on my target': El Paso school counselor prepared for life-changing moment

Each time Janice Aguilar-Jaramillo stepped onto a pitching mound, she didn't realize she was preparing for an entirely different and defining moment to come in her life.

"Being a pitcher, you're alone in that circle. Everybody's watching you," Aguilar-Jaramillo explained. "And you will rise to the occasion or you fold. I was able to always focus in on my target and get the job done."

Fourteen years after her decorated college softball career, she would draw on that experience when El Paso Children's Hospital doctors confirmed her 5-year-old daughter had acute leukemia.

"I can't say I took a breath at all during that time," Aguilar-Jaramillo said. "I was focused on my target. And that was her. And that was my family."

Her resilience was recognized earlier this month when Aguilar-Jaramillo was inducted into the New Mexico Highlands University sports Hall of Fame. The former Cowgirl pitched from 1995 to 1998 and was inducted in 2020, but the celebration was postponed untilthis year because of COVID restrictions in New Mexico.

Aguilar-Jaramillo, a student counselor at Don Haskins PK-8, has strong ties to the coaching community in El Paso. Her husband is a football coach at Pebble Hills High School and her older sister was the first head softball coach at the University of Texas at El Paso.

In an acceptance speech played at the banquet, Aguilar-Jaramillo said she is proud, honored and humbled to become a Hall of Fame NCAA Division II athlete.

"I had an absolutely amazing time playing softball, even with all the cold games that we played in and the long bus trips," she said. "I made lifelong friends, had some amazing professors and I met my husband."

As a student-athlete she left college with life lessons more valuable than any championship.

"I never thought about how (being a) pitcher contributed to who I am today until that cancer diagnosis," she said.

'The only way to play the game'

Aguilar-Jaramillo started her sports career as a 5-year-old playing alongside her older-sister, Kathleen Rodriguez, in their hometown of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The sisters' softball careers did not come with an ordinary start. They were forced to play baseball because city didn't have any girls' softball teams. For seven years, Aguilar-Jaramillo and Rodriguez competed with boys.

"It was the only way to play the game," said Rodriguez, now the head Islander softball coach at Texas A&M Corpus Christi.

The sisters' experiences weren't the most welcoming. The boys didn't like the girls being on the team. Sometimes their teammates would purposefully hit Aguilar-Jaramillo and Rodriguez with baseballs.

"It wasn't a comfortable spot sometimes for them, to be shown up," Rodriguez said. "It shows you a space of perseverance. It gives you a space of understanding what a true passion looks like and then putting all those together and attacking it with every bit of your athleticism and talents that your parents and God gave you."

Aguilar-Jaramillo took the challenges in stride, never questioning the sisters' contributions on the baseball diamond.

After hearing of a softball team in Albuquerque, the New Mexico Sundancers, Aguilar-Jaramillo and Rodriguez traveled an hour to play. They made the trip along Interstate-25 everyday.

Aguilar-Jaramillo went on to play varsity softball as an eighth grader. After graduating from high school, she was recruited to play at Highlands University, where she received a bachelor's degree in Human Performance in Sport. In her final season as Cowgirl, she led the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference with 182.6 innings pitched in 34 games and was second in the conference with 17 wins overall.

Going into sports mode

Aguilar-Jaramillo and her husband, Anthony Jaramillo, left northern New Mexico and relocated in El Paso. They started their family and coaching careers. The couple had two sons and then came, Ayana, who was healthy until age 5.

Over about two weeks, Aguilar-Jaramillo said she noticed her daughter suffering through 45-minute nosebleeds, random bruises, rashes, swollen gums and fatigue.

Growing more concerned about Ayana's declining health, Aguilar-Jaramillo began searching the internet for an explanation of a cause of the symptoms. Stumbling upon an article about leukemia, she grew more fearful at the thought that her daughter might have cancer.

Aguilar-Jaramillo explained her fear to her husband who took Ayana to a doctor the next day. In November 2015, Ayana was diagnosed withleukemia, which is potentially life-threatening if not treated immediately.

"We were super positive from the beginning, and never let that change," Aguilar-Jaramillo said.

When Ayana was being treated at the children's hospital, family members and friends who came to visit her were toldto leave the tears at the door. Aguilar-Jaramillo only wanted positivity around Ayana.

"We were not going to take this lying down," Aguilar-Jaramillo said. "We weren't going to let it get to us."

The Jaramillo family participated in children's events at the hospital and even spent holidays there. During the Christmas season, the family made a makeshift chimney, brought presents to the room and had Santa Claus come visit.

Rodriguez recalled how her sister drew on being a competitor to pull her daughter through some difficult times.

"As student-athletes, you're taught to put your head down and get after it," Rodriguez said. "Get after the task at hand. Put your head down. You get to work and you complete the task."

Today Ayana has been in remission for six years.

Aguilar-Jaramillo didn't win this game alone. Her husband Anthony Jaramillo has been her teammate for over 21 years.

Fan first, husband later

As an athlete for much of her life, Aguilar-Jaramillo said she never felt her athleticism needed to be recognized. Her husband felt otherwise.

As a Highlands University Cowboy football player, Jaramillo was a big fan of his future wife. He witnessed her leadership abilities and how the team would rally around her.

"I'm very lucky to be with her. I'm very lucky to have seen her play at a high level," Jaramillo said. "I know what she brings to the table, and she's a special person."

Deeply connected to the sports industry, and a big Denver Bronco football fan, Jaramillo saw it fitting to propose to her at the last home game played at the Mile High Stadium around December 2000.

Jaramillo recruited the family to help set up the proposal and get the famous four-word question displayed on the stadium's large video screen. Aguilar-Jaramillo said yes.

"She wasn't really a football fan prior to that but you know once that happened, she definitely became a fan of the Denver Broncos," Jaramillo said.

Jaramillo went on to nominate his wife for the Highlands Hall of Fame, secured letters of recommendation, sent paperwork and a video of her games to the NMHU Athletic “H” Club, the Hall of Fame program.

Once he submitted her nomination, he had no doubt in his mind she would be chosen.

"It's kind of like you go to the racetrack, and you know who's gonna win. So you bet on the winner," Jaramillo said. "It was one of those things to me. It was a sure thing, like betting on Peyton Manning, Tom Brady in the Super Bowl."

The couple's love for the game taught them the importance of relying on teammates.

When Ayala was battling cancer, Aguilar-Jaramillo knew situations like this one could break families, but not theirs.

The couple shared treatment and family responsibilities.

Jaramillo would get their two sons, now 19-year-old Jaydn and 16-year-old Dorian, ready for school. After work he would spend two to three nights at the hospital so Aguilar-Jaramillo could go home to rest and spend time with her boys.

'Mama of the family'

Now that Aguilar-Jaramillo no longer coaches softball, she's settled into what she says is her most important position: motherhood.

Aguilar-Jaramillo coached softball for over14 years at schools. Nowadays she spends more timeone-on-one coaching with her daughter, a seventh-grade softball player at Hornedo Middle School.

"She says that she's not coaching but yeah, she is," Rodriguez said. "It's just in a different way, where she's taken her coaching style and her playing style and has just transferred it into the role that she's taken as the head coach or mama of the family."

With Ayana in remission, Aguilar-Jaramillo has been spending more time dedicated to her kids. She says being their mom is cooler than any accomplishment she's ever achieved — perhaps even the New Mexico Highland University Hall of Fame.

"Watching my kids grow is probably one of the highlights of my life," Aguilar-Jaramillo said.

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: EPISD counselor prepared for life-changing moment with daughter