[Stovegeothnon]

I am not sure if this thread is relevant to this thread or not, so I will apologize to the moderators upfront.

As I get older, I find myself reflecting more and more life and priorities. To that end, the following two articles, touched me to the point of tears. I hope you enjoy them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/sp...l?ref=football


May 11, 2008
CHEERING SECTION
Dying of Cancer, but Full of Life Lessons

By VINCENT M. MALLOZZI
Pittsburgh wide receiver Hines Ward arrived for this month’s Steelers minicamp with two books tucked in his duffel bag: the team’s playbook and a copy of “The Last Lecture,” co-written by Randy Pausch, who left his job as a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University last September.

“Randy is an inspiration,” Ward said by telephone last week. “He told me he’s one of my biggest fans, and I told him that I’m one of his.”

In September 2006, Pausch learned he had pancreatic cancer, a disease that is usually fatal within months of diagnosis. A year later, he used 76 minutes of borrowed time to talk to 400 spectators in Pittsburgh about the joys of living and reaching goals.

The lecture, which Pausch titled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” became an Internet phenomenon, with millions viewing it on YouTube. It was also the basis for the best-selling book, written with Jeffrey Zaslow, a columnist for The Wall Street Journal.

“I know the book is doing really well, but the only three copies that really mean anything to me are the ones that went to my children,” Pausch, 47, said in a telephone interview last week from his home in Chesapeake, Va. “The rest is all gravy.”

In the book, Pausch writes about his childhood fantasies. He grew up in Columbia, Md., wishing he could be Captain Kirk, experience the thrill of floating in zero gravity and play in the N.F.L.

A month after his last lecture, the Steelers made a little piece of Pausch’s N.F.L. dream come true, inviting him to a practice. Pausch showed up wearing Ward’s No. 86 jersey and huddled with Ward, quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, safety Troy Polamalu and Coach Mike Tomlin.

“I promised them that if they got to the Super Bowl, I’d be around to see it,” Pausch said with a chuckle. “Well, at least I kept my end of the bargain.”

At practice, Pausch raced onto the field and began running pass routes, often diving for balls tossed by Ward.

“It was fantastic beyond my wildest dreams,” Pausch said.

Under the tutelage of kicker Jeff Reed, Pausch made a field goal on his only attempt, a 20-yarder that created a buzz on the field.

“Randy was having so much fun, he was actually teaching us a lesson that day,” Ward said. “He reminded us that we should never take anything for granted because nothing is promised to us, and that we should enjoy every moment of our lives, on and off the football field.”

Two weeks ago, Pausch thanked Ward by sending him an autographed copy of “The Last Lecture.” On May 2, at the start of a three-day minicamp, Ward called Pausch.

“He was on my mind, and I just wanted to see how he was doing,” Ward said. “It’s kind of difficult talking to a man you know is going to die, but with Randy, he’s always so positive, he never seems to get down. He has a truly amazing spirit. Here’s a man who knows his time on earth is short, and yet he has written a book that has given me and so many others a greater appreciation for life. It takes a courageous human being to do something like that.”

During their 15-minute conversation, Pausch gave Ward his version of the last pep talk.

“I told Hines that I wasn’t so sure I‘d be around for another Super Bowl,” said Pausch, who has developed congestive heart failure and kidney failure in the last two months. “I told him to keep playing hard and to step up and be a mentor to the younger guys on the team. I told him that it’s important to lead, and live, by example.”

Ward said that for the rest of his career and beyond, he would hold on tight to a line from Pausch’s book: “We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.”

Pausch said he was trying to play out his hand “with the dignity of an athlete at the end of a great career.”

“There are times at the end of games when you look up at the scoreboard and do not like what you see, and this is one of those times,” he added. “I’m hanging in there, trying to spend as much quality time with my wife and kids as possible, and though it’s very frustrating to know I won’t beat the cancer, there’s a great satisfaction in knowing that I’m walking off the field with no regrets. There’s nothing about my life that I would have changed.”

E-mail: cheers@nytimes.com


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[chipkluchi]

One of my childhood heros who is showing immense courage in combatting brain cancer.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/09/sp...gewanted=print

May 9, 2008
TV SPORTS
Murcer the Author Tells of His Life and New Yogiism

By RICHARD SANDOMIR
Bobby Murcer did not expect to write his autobiography so soon, but in 11 days, on his 62nd birthday, “Yankee for Life: My 40-Year Journey in Pinstripes” (Harper), will be released. It is funny, wry, lovely — and about having the worst brain cancer possible.

“I’d always thought about writing a book, but I wasn’t going to do until I was totally retired,” Murcer, a YES Network analyst, said by telephone from his car on Thursday. “But since I had the cancer, I thought I ought to ratchet it up a year or two.”

The book is not entirely about cancer, but also deals with his upbringing in Oklahoma; his minor league and major league careers; his enduring thrill at being a Yankee; his sense of exile after being traded to the Giants (with glee, he writes, by the Yankees president Gabe Paul); and his elation at returning to the Bronx. It includes his broadcasting career in which, thanks to Phil Rizzuto, he ate about 2,500 cannolis; his devotion to his wife, Kay, and their two children; and his regrets at once endorsing tobacco (and driving the Skoal Mobile).

His chapters about being a Yankee offer mostly gentle, amusing observations. He noted that he was nicknamed Lemon by Fritz Peterson, whose family-swapping with his fellow Yankee pitcher Mike Kekich buried the news in 1973 that Murcer had signed a $100,000 contract. He recalled how the longtime pitching coach Jim Turner, a chocoholic, desperately sought edible pieces of a chocolate cake unspoiled by reliever Sparky Lyle’s nude plunges into pastry delivered to the clubhouse.

He remembered Tommy John’s excessive loquaciousness; his closeness with Thurman Munson and Lou Piniella (and the time they spent together before Munson’s fatal airplane crash); and his decision, rendered within 30 minutes at the persuasive request of George Steinbrenner, that he retire and move into the broadcast booth.

Another “request” by Steinbrenner came a year and a half later: leave Rizzuto’s side to become assistant general manager and succeed Clyde King as G.M. after a year. Murcer’s reaction: “What an honor! What an opportunity! What a mistake!” After a year, he knew a front-office job was not his personal destiny and happily returned to Rizzuto’s side.

•

Obligatory Rizzuto story: The Tiger Stadium’s radio booth offered a difficult vantage point, prompting the Scooter to declare that a fly ball by Cecil Fielder had soared over the roof. Yet, to Rizzuto’s shock, it was caught by Yankee shortstop Alvaro Espinoza. “The shortstop!” Murcer recalls Rizzuto saying. “Murcer! How can the shortstop catch ... oh, Murcer! I can’t talk anymore.” True to his word, he stopped talking.

Obligatory Yogiism from the book: Berra got a call from Mel Stottlemyre asking about Murcer. “Hey Carm!” Berra shouted to his wife. “He wants to know if we’ve heard anything about Bobby’s autopsy down in Houston.” Not autopsy, Yogi, biopsy.

Murcer writes candidly about his brain tumor, a glioblastoma multiforme discovered in December 2006, and his surgery, radiation, chemotherapy and vaccine, which he takes as part of a clinical trial. He tells an intimate story that does not seem as harrowing as it should be, in a casual voice captured well by his collaborator, Glen Waggoner (a co-creator of Rotisserie baseball). Murcer and his family cry but seem to believe they were chosen by God for the ordeal.

•

About the five hours required to remove the three-and-a-half-centimeter tumor (which was lifted out of his brain like a golf ball from the rough, his surgeon told him), Murcer wrote: “Think an extra-inning game, plus a couple of rain delays.”

At the end of a course of radiation, he and Kay drove from the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston to Dallas in time for the birth of their son’s twins.

After Murcer finished his final round of radiation, Kay sent friends a poem she had written that read, in part:

“The end’s in sight, and so tonight/our greeting’s sent with glee./With 7 ‘zaps’ and cute skull caps/From Houston we’ll soon flee.”

Murcer said Thursday that he was accustomed to discussing terminal brain cancer. The book reflects that ease.

“It is what it is,” he said. “I know we have a battle on our hands, and we’re equipped for the battle because we have God on our side. I’m realistic about where things are and how they might turn out but we’re not shying from anything.”

About his wife, whom he met in childhood, he added, “I don’t know why God sent me an angel to take care of me, but she’s that angel for sure.”

Murcer returned to his work at YES last weekend, sounding weak last Friday but stronger on Sunday. He will continue to work as he often as he can.

“God has blessed us so much since I was diagnosed with this brain tumor and so many blessings have come my way,” he said. “It’s changed our lives for the better.”

His coming birthday is a reminder of his mortality and his hope. He will not celebrate it with a book party. He will be in Houston, taking a vaccine whose goal is to stop or slow the growth of new cancer cells.

E-mail: sportsbiz@nytimes.com


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