So you believe Craig Sager is a courageous guy due to the fact that he is fighting leukemia by continuing to job as an NBA sideline reporter between blood transfusions and hospital visits?
You ought to have actually seen him or her 45 years ago once we were in college together. That’s once Sager was brave enough — while serving as the Northwestern football team’s Willie the Wildcat mascot — to spend the Friday night prior to an Ohio State game in Columbus at the regional bars full of enthusiastic Buckeye undergraduates.
Yes, while rocking the Willie the Wildcat mascot head.
“I believe they’ll like it,” Craig said prior to he left our hotel room.
“Uh, I’m not sure,” I said.
They loved it. The Ohio State girls in the bars hugged him. The Ohio State guys bought him or her drinks. After a while, I left to see some old friends. Craig gained dozens of brand-new ones.
Foreshadowing? Absolutely. It came as no surprise to me that after Craig made his diploma, he entered the media globe at full rate along with no inhibitions. In 1974, he famously ran onto the field along with his tape recorder to grab Hank Aaron’s initial words as he was still rounding the bases after hitting his tape-record 715th residence run. Soon he moved on to CNN and Turner Sports and TBS and TNT, where he created a trademark of wearing wild sport coats as a sideline reporter and — this is the section individuals as well frequently skip — actually asking excellent questions that provoke interesting answers from head coaches.
And man, was it sure terrific to see Sager carrying out that again Tuesday night at the Warriors’ game, the initial one he’s worked because a segment on HBO’s “Genuine Sports” revealed that his leukemia is no longer in remission. Doctors have actually told him or her that free of treatment, a patient in his condition would certainly have actually three to 6 months to live. Sager is receiving aggressive treatment, however, and fully expects to beat those odds.
If only we’d had the Willie the Wildcat head, it would certainly have actually been the ideal pregame reunion.
“I’m taking a red-eye flight spine to Houston after tonight’s game,” he said. “It functions out well due to the fact that I’ve got a doctor’s appointment there at the cancer center, prior to I’ve got the Rockets-Bulls game there on Thursday night. Then the Last Four is this weekend.”
Earlier this week, his aggressive treatment strategy likewise included a Monday hospital visit where he “got a bag of platelets and a blood transfusion — sort of pumped me up, got me going.”
Sager after that joked: “It’s enjoy having an old car. You’ve got to put gas in it. If it’s leaking oil, you’ve got to put oil in it every day, too. Obviously not good, however it’s preserving me going. I have actually no choice.”
His intention, Craig said, is to job through the NBA playoffs and be assigned San Antonio’s first-round collection so he can easily go spine and forth to Houston for his routine treatments.
“I’d go crazy if I merely sat around,” he said.
Same old Sager. If anybody can easily outwork leukemia too as outflank the disease, it’ll be him. because his diagnosis in 2014, he has actually undergone a bone-marrow transplant, blood treatments, chemotherapy, various other treatments — and as considerably as anything else, it stunk due to the fact that he was bed-bound rather than carrying out the task he loves. And he wishes individuals to already know he’s holding up all of right, every little thing considered.
“I believe my demise has actually been prematurely reported,” Sager said. “I believe I’m going to kick this and make medical history, and I truly believe that.”
I wish to believe it, too. He’s as well excellent a guy for me not to believe it.
Still, Sager is honest enough to admit his everyday challenges. He can easily no longer take the everyday runs he usually watched on the road, especially along the waterfront listed here in the Bay Area. His foot pain and reasonable electricity levels make it as well difficult. There’s likewise a blood clot behind his right ear that makes it difficult for him or her to hear however can’t be treated due to the fact that the procedure could induce him or her to bleed to death.
But you already know once he forgets concerning all this? once he’s on the court, in the midst of the action, preparation the right questions at the right times. After Tuesday’s success by the Warriors, Sager was there on the floor along with Stephen Curry, raising the pertinent issue of whether he and various other Golden State gamers may be thinking of taking some time off in the season’s Last two weeks as a result of exhaustion or fatigue.
“Seeing you and just what you’re doing, we’ve got no excuses,” Curry answered.
The NBA’s defending MVP after that called Sager an inspiration. I believe that’s a unanimous vote.
“See you at the playoffs,” I told Craig prior to he left Oracle.
I have actually no doubt I will.
