Coach's Corner: Fight Like Crazy!

Coach’s Corner

As some of you have likely heard, our amazing dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer on November 24, 2021. It was the day before Thanksgiving. I’m not sure the right words exist to adequately describe the gut punch this news was - and still is - to our family. The holidays were much different this year. We are so keenly aware of how difficult the past two years have been for so many, and yet... our family’s very toughest year is yet to come.

So many of you already know and love him, but for those of you who may not know him quite as well.. we want to talk a little about our dad. Originally from the hills of Kentucky, he has been a football and basketball coach in south Mississippi for 38 years. He loves sports more than anyone you’ve ever met, and would happily go toe-to-toe with just about anybody on sports trivia. He is without a doubt the BIGGEST Kentucky Wildcat fan in the lower 48, and he is proud of it. He’s been married to our beautiful mom for 40 years THIS month, and their love is truly one of a kind. He has two daughters (that’s us!), and he is the PROUDEST new grandpa to his very first grandbaby, Jack David (my little boy, named after my dad). As a teacher and a coach, he has had an immeasurable impact on so many young lives. He is loved by everyone who knows him, truly. As his daughters, we feel unspeakably lucky to be able to call him Dad. He has been our knight in shining armor, our rock, and our hero for as long as we’ve been on this earth. We don’t anticipate any of that changing anytime soon.

While we can’t speak personally about him as a coach (we both grew up with ballet shoes on our feet instead of a basketball in our hands… sorry Dad!), the truth is that we probably don’t need to. The hundreds of comments, texts, messages, videos, and visits to our house since this news broke ALL speak for themselves. We truly can’t thank all of you enough for that. He reads every comment. He listens to every message. He reads every text and every card. He internalizes each encouraging word, each hopeful prayer, each reminder of his strength and his influence on you. After giving so much of himself to his players and students for the past 38 years, he is finally starting to get a sense of the incredible impact he has had and continues to have on this community. These comments and messages mean the world to him, so please keep them coming! His toughest days are ahead, and he will need all the encouragement and hope you can spare. Please, feel free to email, share, comment on this page, etc. More than ever, he deserves to feel how much love so many people have for him. All the good he has put into the world for so many years... we believe it will come back to him now, tenfold. 

Our dad’s faith has been - and will inevitably continue to be - a huge part of who he is. For our whole lives, his and our sweet mom’s belief in God has been unwavering, but you should see it now. Something like this - a terrifying cancer diagnosis - could very easily break a person, or cause them (understandably) to question their faith. But not our mom and dad. This has only strengthened their faith, in a way that has been admirable to say the very least - perhaps miraculous is a better word. We believe in the power of prayer, and we know Dad already has an actual army praying for him. We are asking you to keep those prayers coming, for as long as it takes. They’re working!

Now a bit about this monster in his pancreas called cancer. Given how scary the initial prognosis was, the news we’ve received since then has been slightly better. After dozens of scans, even more blood draws, scopes, biopsies, stint placements, and more.. we’ve learned that his cancer is currently contained within his pancreas. As of right now, it has not spread. It is also positioned in such a way that it gave him very early warning signs. We are so, SO thankful for that. He sensed something was wrong, so he had bloodwork done, and he was sent straight to the ER for scans upon receiving the results of that bloodwork. Things have been a nonstop blur since that day, to be honest.

However, there is hope! He is receiving excellent care at Oschner in New Orleans, and we have full faith and confidence in his amazing doctors. He is officially on a treatment plan that begins THIS WEEK. He will be starting with 2 -4 months of intense chemotherapy this upcoming Wednesday, January 5. Because of his otherwise incredibly healthy body and medical history, his team has explained to us that they want to “throw the book” at him in chemotherapy, because they believe he can physically handle it. This will be done in hopes of shrinking the tumor as much as possible before surgery. After the initial rounds of chemo, Dad will undergo a major surgery called a Whipple procedure to remove his tumor. This surgery is not without risk, but we are hopeful that he will in the best hands possible, and that it will be successful. After the surgery and recovery period, he will undergo 4 more months of chemotherapy. If all goes well, this will be the absolute worst year of our lives.. but then our dad will get better. That’s all we want. Truly. It’s what we go to bed thinking about at night, and it's the first thing we think about every morning.

We wanted to create this page to provide updates for all of you who have asked to be kept in the loop. We will post here about any updates on his treatment cycle, his surgery, and any other news we receive. We have also created a Go Fund Me page for our dad’s treatment, and we will be linking it on this page. Our parents were (and are) very hesitant and reluctant about that part… but we know how many people have asked how they can help our dad. We also know how incredibly (sometimes impossibly) expensive this diagnosis and treatment can be, even with great health insurance. So, we are taking it upon ourselves to open an avenue of assistance for our dad that may help lessen some of his anxieties and stress about the year ahead, because we know and believe that he deserves that.

Dad is somewhat known in our community for two sayings, in particular. He has repeated them to us, to his students, to his friends, and to his players for decades now. He always says:

"It’s a great day to have a great day!” and “Fight like crazy!!”

They both seem so incredibly relevant to our lives now. We are hoping for as many great days as possible in the upcoming year, and we promise to fight like crazy with and for him.

We truly love you all so much. Our sense of community has never felt so powerful and valuable as it does right now. The outpouring of love our family has already received is astounding. Thank you for loving our dad as much as we do.

With all of our love,

Denae and Keli