It was the fall of 2002, I was 17 years old and a senior in high school back home in Cleveland. That was the year when cancer ravaged the body of my grandfather and took a paltry six months from diagnosis to death. It was a horrific sight to witness the hasty decline that disease can take on a man's body.
My grandfather and I played golf with semi-regularity every summer at the local public golf course. I am talking actual golf-where you walk. "A good walk, spoiled," as Mark Twain once said. And that was a large point of contention for my grandfather: We always walked. Never would we have used a cart, and he carried his own bag. This is a 76-year-old man carrying a golf bag, and a few months later he could not even walk from the bedroom to the bathroom.
He was a man who respected hard work. He lived through the Great Depression and fought in World War II. He never took life for granted. What more can you ask for?
But, that is the strength of cancer; it can take a promising life and dash hope for the future. That being said, this week we have witnessed the end, albeit very different ends, of two careers filled with strength and hope for cancer survivors.
Sam Mills typified the "Rudy" mindset of a player with so much heart, coaches can not ignore him. Mills was an undersized linebacker who played for the New Orleans Saints and the Carolina Panthers. Later, Mills was the linebackers coach for the Panthers. Mills died on Monday after a two-year battle with intestinal cancer.
Mills' career was nothing short of spectacular, both on the field as a player and off the field as a coach. Mills tried and failed in the NFL and the Canadian Football League.
He caught on in the now-defunct USFL under coach Jim Mora, who wanted desperately to cut the undersized linebacker, but could not ignore his tenacity and heart-so much so, that Mora brought Mills with him to New Orleans, and the NFL.
When Mills retired from the Panthers, he was promptly added to their coaching staff, and was one of the team's most well-respected coaches. In 2003, Mills was diagnosed with cancer. That season, as a coach, Mills did not miss a single game.
He would schedule his chemotherapy treatments for days the Panthers had off. These are treatments that put people in bed, and he organized them around a grueling NFL schedule.
"You have your good days and your bad days. I am just glad I am having days, you know?" Mills said in a press conference just before the Panthers played in the 2003 Super Bowl. It was that kind of optimism in the face of bleak circumstances that Mills will be remembered by.
Mills' legacy can be summed up in one quote: "Sam Mills was not only one of the finest football players that I have ever been around, but above and beyond that, he was one of the finest individuals," said Houston coach Dom Capers, who coached Mills with the Panthers.
That same Monday, another well-noted cancer survivor, Lance Armstrong, announced he will retire from cycling after the upcoming Tour de France. Armstrong's tribulations with cancer have been well documented and spawned the "Livestrong" bracelets we see all over now.
Armstrong overcame testicular cancer to become a grandiose cycling legend. His unprecedented six-straight Tour de France title puts him among cycling's elite.
His courage in overcoming cancer has inspired countless cancer patients to hold on to hope, that they too can recover and get their life back. And no price can ever be put on hope.
Forget the talk of steroids with Lance; we will leave that to Barry and his boys. Armstrong, through painstaking hard work and willpower, overcame an illness that ruins the lives of many and went on to set records-not by using drugs. On July 25, Armstrong hopes to ride through Paris victorious, in his last Tour de France, regardless of outcome.
Armstrong was diagnosed with cancer in 1996 after the Atlanta Olympics were completed. He was given a 50 percent chance of survival. We are talking about a coin flip as to whether he would live or die; cycling was secondary.
He underwent surgery and intensive chemotherapy, and was declared cancer-free in 1997. Two short years later Armstrong won his first Tour de France, cycling's Super Bowl.
Whether it is cliché or not, sports is a metaphor for life. Fans are drawn to sports, and athletes as outlets for life and inspiration. Rather than look to adulterers, wife beaters and assorted criminals as "heroes," these are the type of men everyone from our youth to our elderly can, and should, look to as role models.
On this day, I would like to salute the career of Armstrong and the life of Mills.
These men took all they could from life and still managed to give back. They never let things be handed to them on the proverbial silver platter. Grandpa would have appreciated that.
