|
|
January 30, 2004
Fighting the Good Fight
Fields, Mills continue to fight their individual battles against cancer
BY LENOX RAWLINGS
HOUSTON
Linebacker Sam Mills always wanted to arrive at the Super Bowl with adrenaline surging through his body.
He never made it.
Six years after retiring, Mills finally reached the NFL extravaganza on Wednesday night as the Carolina Panthers' linebackers coach. He had chemotherapy juice flowing through his veins, the primary weapon against a vicious form of intestinal cancer doctors discovered just before the season opener.
As Mills described his plight and his fight yesterday, sweat poured from his forehead. A team official tossed him a green linen napkin. Mills removed his glasses and wiped his face, and seconds later the streams of perspiration returned.
He kept going. He always keeps going. Mills spoke eloquently and briskly, a man in a hurry as the Sunday-night kickoff approaches, a man racing the clock as his body processes the toxins that might kill the killing cancer.
"It can be tough on you," Mills said. "When they are pumping this stuff into your body, it can be very tough on you. You have your good days and your bad days. I'm just glad I am having days, you know, whether they are good or bad."
Some are better than others. The night Carolina beat Philadelphia and jumped aboard the Super Bowl train, Mills, 44, celebrated like a rookie in the locker room, his dream fulfilled after 18 pro seasons. The recent day Carolina's ailing linebacker, Mark Fields, completed chemotherapy for Hodgkin's disease and got tentative approval to play next season, Mills rejoiced with the other Panthers.
Mills' cancer is more lethal, and his prognosis is less certain.
"Well," Mills said, "we really don't know long term. We are kind of taking it every two weeks at a time. Periodically I get CAT scans done. There is improvement going on right now, and we just hope to continue to improve. As far as long term, we really don't know. There is no set answer right now."
At training camp last summer, the announcement about Fields' disease rocked the coaches and players. Fields, a 31-year-old veteran who led the 2002 Panthers in tackles, immediately started treatments.
"I'll say that it is a very humbling experience, but it makes you appreciate things and look at things in a totally different light," Fields said yesterday. "You can't imagine how I feel about next year, and that I even have the opportunity to come back and play. Training camp can't be long enough for me. Guys might get mad at me, because we can stay in training camp all year long."
A month after Fields' diagnosis, Mills became so fatigued that he didn't feel like exercising, an odd circumstance for a fitness fanatic who became one of the greatest linebackers despite playing a power position at 5-9, 225 pounds. Mills is the only player in the team's Hall of Honor. The other member: Mike McCormack, the expansion franchise's first president.
Fields couldn't fathom the odds of finding his coach in a similar predicament. "That," Fields said, "is like one in a million."
Huge, hardened football players wept, defensive tackle Brentson Buckner among them.
"When we first found out," Buckner said, "it was just silence. Nobody could believe it. You sit here and you see a guy who has been going through training camp with us. He works out every day. He is running. For them to tell you, guys were real touched. The one thing I remember is when Sam gave us a speech right before we played Dallas. He said that when he found out he had cancer, there were two things he could do: quit or keep pounding. Just like he played the football game, he never quit, and the only way he knew how to fight was to keep fighting until the end."
Coach John Fox left Mills' job status up to him. Ken Flajole, a defensive assistant, shared the linebacker duties with Mills, who chose to work except on those periodic days when chemotherapy wiped him out.
"Basically," Fox said, "I told Sam it was about him. I don't want him to feel guilty for not being there. I don't want him to feel guilty for being there. We have conversations, and we have throughout the season. It's not something that makes anybody feel comfortable when you deal with it too much or ask too many questions."
The players, coaches, owner Jerry Richardson and others in the organization rallied around their sick brethren. Panthers wore T-shirts with the two appropriate uniform numbers on the chest, 58 and 51. They also won eight games on their final possession. After Carolina blocked an extra point against Tampa Bay and prevailed in overtime, Mills told the team that the bizarre finish proved that nothing's impossible.
Mills described the comebacks as therapeutic signals. He needs that inspiration when he struggles for optimism on weary days.
"You just look in the mirror and say: 'Hey, God, I know you are with me and I'm just going to keep on working,'" Mills said. "Sometimes, that is just part of it. That is just part of the deal. Life is not just great every day, all day. Sometimes you are going to have some points in life. You just have to bounce back from it. You have to deal with it. It is part of life. Nobody wants to have this disease, but somebody does, and we just so happen to be those guys, and we just have to keep on fighting."
They will.
• Lenox Rawlings can be reached at lrawlings@wsjournal.com