Daniel Goba fainted and hit his head at home during his junior year, a moment that would eventually lead to a diagnosis no 21-year-old expects to hear: a grade 2 IDH-mutant glioma, found completely incidentally. His first words after learning he had a brain tumor were not about fear or treatment plans. He asked when he could get back on the soccer field.
A Shocking Discovery Mid-Season
Goba had just played his first soccer season at the University of Rhode Island, chasing what he considered his dream of competing in Division 1 soccer, according to WJAR. He had played in four games of that season before collapsing, and the station reports surgeons later removed the glioma entirely. A separate 2025 account from Rhody Cigar described Goba as having played in four games for the URI men's soccer team before undergoing what it called a significant health scare, with a CT scan at South County Hospital revealing a precancerous Stage 2 glioma tumor in his frontal lobe.
Goba underwent open brain surgery on September 9 to remove the tumor, the outlet reported. In the weeks that followed, he was attending physical therapy once a week and working his way back into the gym, with a stated goal, in his own words, of appearing in a game during URI's spring season.
Leaning on a Hasbro Children's Social Worker
Back in Rhode Island, Goba's recovery has had a steady presence: Laura Moynihan, a clinical social worker at Hasbro Children's who became part of his post-cancer care. Goba said Moynihan is a huge part of his recovery, acting as what he described as a mental coach he can schedule appointments with whenever he feels stressed, per WJAR's reporting. He also said that returning to play with his team was itself a motivating force behind his recovery and his work to regain fitness.
That kind of psychosocial support is central to how childhood cancer programs describe their mission. The Tomorrow Fund, which operates a clinic at Hasbro Children's Hospital, says it was founded in 1985 to ease the traumatic financial and emotional stress of childhood cancer, according to the Tomorrow Fund. Its clinic opened in 1995, and the organization says its team of clinical social workers, a child life specialist, an interpreter and a parent consultant works to meet both the medical and psychosocial needs of patients from diagnosis through treatment and into recovery.
Why Reintegration Support Matters
Research into childhood cancer survivorship backs up why that kind of ongoing emotional support matters beyond the hospital room. A qualitative study examining adolescent and young adult survivors identified what researchers described as the persistent shadow of prejudice, along with education and employment stigma and difficulties with social reintegration, according to findings published on ScienceDirect. That research, based on interviews with 19 survivors aged 14 to 28 and 11 parents, concluded that survivorship care needs to address psychosocial well-being alongside medical follow-up.
A separate systematic review of brain tumor survivors ages 15 to 39 similarly pointed to resilience factors like positive coping styles, managing emotions and family functioning as central to how young survivors navigate life after cancer, per a synthesis of 27 studies on PMC. Other research has noted that pediatric brain tumor survivors can face deficits in social competence as a late effect of their illness, according to a mixed-methods study indexed on PubMed.
Back With His Team for a Playoff Run
For Goba, that return to his team is happening now. He said URI is making its first Atlantic 10 playoff appearance since 2019, and he will take part in the match, which WJAR reports is set to kick off Friday at 7 p.m. at URI's soccer complex. It is the kind of moment he was asking about from the very start, back when a tumor diagnosis still led him to wonder, before almost anything else, when he could play again.
