He graduated with honors in May from Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville. He earned a $2,300 scholarship to the University of Florida and secured a summer internship at a Tampa sports talk radio station.

After spending the summer playing baseball for the St. Petersburg Black Sox, a college league team that won a state title on Sunday, he left Tuesday for Atlanta, where the team will compete in the American Amateur Baseball Congress Southeastern Regional Tournament.

But most important to Klee, who was given a diagnosis of testicular cancer a year ago, is the clean bill of health his doctor gave him at his last checkup.

The 1999 Seminole High graduate's ordeal started when he found a small, hard lump in his right testicle. He could tell something wasn't right. He told his mother he was going for a checkup, but he didn't tell her why.

"The doctor checked it out and you could tell he wasn't happy about it," Klee said. "Three days later, I was having my first surgery."

Klee's mother and stepfather, Tami Klee and Jim Epting, and his father and stepmother, Neil and Renee Klee, all of Seminole, were in shock when he broke the news.

"You keep thinking you don't want to overreact because you don't think it will be that bad, but then it is that bad," Renee Klee said.

Klee's friends didn't believe him.

"They were like, 'Dude, you're only 19.' That's what blew most people away," he said.

After his doctor told him a little about the disease, he explained to his friends that cancer of the testicles usually occurs in men between the ages of 15 and 35.

After a biopsy and the removal of the diseased testicle, Klee was given three options: He could start chemotherapy; he could undergo a lymph node dissection to identify and remove infected lymph nodes; or he could do nothing. He opted for the surgery. It was the most radical course, but the one with the greatest likelihood of arresting the cancer. It also meant he could forgo months of debilitating chemotherapy.

"Basically, the doctor took all my organs out of my stomach so he could get to the lymph nodes on the right side," Klee said. "He took about 30 out. The cancer had spread to about four."

Klee, who had never been sick in his life, found the recovery process difficult.

"It was definitely tough," he said. "I'm so used to being an active person. All of a sudden, I'm told I can't do anything for six months."

He was able to go back to school two weeks into the semester, but found that just walking around with his backpack exhausted him. He had lost 20 pounds and a lot of muscle mass. But what frustrated him the most was sitting on the bench and watching the baseball team play without him.

"Baseball was the first sport I played and happens to be my first love," Klee said. He ran track and played soccer, volleyball and basketball in middle school at St. Cecilia in Clearwater, but ended up concentrating on baseball in high school.

As a junior and senior at Seminole High School, he was chosen for the St. Petersburg Times all-Pinellas second team at third base, and he pitched for Santa Fe. He admitted that one of the first things that crossed his mind when he was told he had cancer was that he would miss the fall season.

A turning point in his recovery came when his doctor cleared him to resume exercising Oct. 10.

"It probably was what motivated me the most," he said. "I pinned the letter up on my desk by my computer and thought, 'This is what I'm working for.' I went as fast as I could go and did as much as my coach would let me."

Klee got back into a routine, lifting weights and running.

"I always did a little bit extra to catch up. I pushed myself just a little bit more because I knew they were all ahead of me," he said.

His efforts paid off when he was able to pitch the last game before winter break. He remembers walking off the field with a huge grin on his face and shaking his coach's hand.

"No one thought I'd be able to come back for fall season and neither did I," he said. "It was probably one of the happiest days of my life."

Along with baseball, concentrating on his school work kept him from feeling sorry for himself or worrying about what might happen next, Klee said. He carried a 12-hour course load and earned straight A's. He did well in the spring semester, and when his mother told him about a scholarship offered by the American Cancer Society, he decided to apply. He found out in May that his tuition and books for his first semester at the University of Florida will be covered.

When Klee came home to Seminole for the summer, a friend told him about a college baseball league he played in last year. Klee tried out as a pitcher and made the team. His coach, Reed McMillan, said he has been an asset.

"What you ask him to do, he does," McMillan said. "He doesn't sulk. He's very positive and outgoing. He gives you 100 percent whether it's practice or the game."

Klee said it just comes naturally to him.

"My parents always taught me to be a fair sport," he said. "I've been a good kid, never got into fights, never mouthed off. It's how I do in life."

He plans to try out for UF's baseball team as a walk-on but said baseball won't be in the forefront of his mind when he starts school in a few weeks. He will concentrate on academics and work toward a degree in telecommunications.

At the one-year anniversary of his diagnosis, Klee is considered cancer-free. He goes for blood work, a CAT scan and chest X-ray every three months. He doesn't worry about whether the disease will return, and now that he has his strength back, he sometimes finds it hard to believe that what happened wasn't just a bad dream.

But his stepmother knows the experience has left a mark on him.

"His joy in himself and his joy in life that I've seen in the last year is just remarkable," she said. "I've seen him laughing a heck of a lot more than he ever did. He's quick to share a joke with friends, he's quick to respond with laughter, and it's wonderful to hear."

Klee has had an effect on his friends, she said.

"He told his friends at school, 'Get checked, get checked, get checked. Don't be afraid,' " she said. "If he feels someone can change from what he's experienced, he's going to share it."

For Klee, the biggest lesson was the realization that no one is invincible.

"It could happen to anybody," he said.

He also has learned never to underestimate a human being's potential to rebound.

"Don't count anyone out," he said. "Some people doubted that I could come back to what I am now. I've proved a lot of people wrong."

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