TUCSON, Arizona — “I don’t really tell anyone about it,” Pima Basketball guard Daniel Ortiz says, brushing off the kind of story most people would find to be a pretty big deal."
But the Pima Community College freshman has a barely noticeable scar—and a past—that speaks louder than he ever will.
Seventh Grade: The Lump That Changed Everything
It started in seventh grade. Something didn’t look right. “I was still living life. I wasn’t worried about it,” Ortiz remembers. Inside his right cheek, a giant mass was growing. To him, it was invisible—until others noticed.“ I didn’t realize it until people pointed it out,” he says. “A big golf ball growing on the side of my face.”Doctors first thought it was a cyst. It wasn’t. It was secretory carcinoma of the parotid gland—a rare salivary gland tumor.
Surgery: “They Took a Whole Chunk of My Face”
The operation was long—nearly six hours. “They had to take a whole chunk of my face just to get that out,” Ortiz says.Surgeons removed the tumor and part of the parotid gland through an incision hidden along the hairline and ear crease. The facial nerve was spared. The cancer was gone.And it never came back.
Back on the Court:
Within months, Ortiz was back dribbling. He starred at Palo Verde High School in Tucson, leading the Titans to the Class 3A state championship game last season—played in the old Phoenix Suns arena.“It was a great experience,” he says with a small smile.Family Ties and a Natural Fit at Pima Basketball runs in the family. His sister, Aaliyah Ortiz, played at Pima. Aztecs assistant coach Marsharne Flannigan once coached at Palo Verde. When head coach Brian Peabody came calling, the transition was seamless. “It’s always good for Pima College to keep those kids home. We recruited him pretty hard,” Flannigan says.
“He’s very quiet, very humble, which I like,” adds Peabody. “He just comes in, goes about his business, does his job, and goes home.”
Redshirting with Purpose:
This season, Ortiz is redshirting—practicing but not playing in games. “I’m on the scout team,” he says. “So I want my teammates to improve.”
The Scar You Can Barely See:
Today, the only trace of that seventh-grade surgery is a faint line near his ear—nearly invisible unless you know where to look. “Right now, I’m focusing on basketball,” he says. “But it is a pretty cool story.”
And for the first time, he’s telling it.
