by Craig Sager
I settled on a suit from Rex Fabrics in Miami. It was a cheetah-patterned black-white-and-yellow suit jacket, to be worn with a yellow shirt and brown pants. Fratelli made a tie to match that was designed at A. Taghi in Houston. My friends at Nike made leopard-print sneakers in matching colors, with the words MR. FANCY and SUITS on the tongues. The ensemble was set and, truly, was like none other that I had ever worn. Now my attention turned to my speech.
I wanted to inspire, I wanted to let people know that no matter what they were going through, if they simply had the right attitude, they could make it. I watched Jimmy V’s speech again and again for inspiration. Hope is not a strategy, of course, but it is a foundation for taking challenges head-on. As I thought about the best way to get my message across, I thought of a train set in the Children’s Hospital in Houston. I don’t know why it came to mind, but there was just something about the display, so I crafted a speech around the trains.
As a young boy, I had the usual hobbies—sports, baseball cards, model airplanes, and trains. But I always had a distinct fascination with trains. The freight trains would run on the CBQ line from Chicago to Quincy or the northwestern line from Aurora to Elgin and come through Batavia three to four times a day, slowing to a walk as they passed by—and occasionally stopping at the metal factory or the lumberyard. The trains had first become a staple in Batavia after the devastating Chicago Fire of 1871, when limestone was dug from a quarry just outside of town and transported to Chicago to help rebuild the city. Despite the slow speed of each train, you could hear the roar of the engine and feel the rumble of the cars from the sandlots down Batavia Avenue to the classrooms of the elementary schools. For a tiny, nondescript Midwestern town like Batavia, Illinois, in the 1950s and ’60s, the trains were a welcome diversion from the routine of small-town life.
When I was a young lad, my best friends and I, including John Clark, Tom Cornwell, and Greg Issel, used the trains as a diversion—as entertainment on slow summer days or late-spring afternoons. There were days when we brought spare change we dug up from the sofas in our homes and placed the coins on the metal rails as the trains approached, hoping that the sheer force and weight of the rigs would provide us with a perfectly smooshed nickel. It was a science, really: more times than not, the rumbling of the cars would knock the coin off before impact or the weight would simply crush it into an unrecognizable piece of scrap. But on one occasion, if we placed it just right, and with a little luck from the train gods, we would have ourselves a souvenir.
But the trains provided more than just metal. We would often jump into an open cargo car as we jogged alongside it, hopping for a ride to the nearby quarry to swim or for the brief two-mile lift to nearby Geneva. Or we would race alongside the freight as it sped up leaving town, the tracks winding parallel to the Fox River. When the tracks were empty, which was most of the day, we would challenge one another to see who could maintain their balance the farthest on the rails, or simply follow the still tracks out of town, one way or the other.
Like most boys, I had a model train set up in my bedroom upstairs, resting on a little-used Ping-Pong table. My first set was mainly Lionel cars, but as the Cold War became fashionable, many of my cars were replaced by blue-and-white military replicas, complete with rockets invariably aimed at the Soviet Union that could be “launched” by hand, and a helicopter that “took off” with the push of a button. Many Christmases, Mom and Dad would deliver me yet another car, and the oval track that was attached to plywood kept growing in size. I could watch the train go round and round on the short loop, time after time, as if expecting something to change. But it never did.
Almost fifty years later in Houston, I found myself once again mesmerized by a train, this time at the Children’s Hospital. At night, on my walks back to the hotel after a long day of treatment, I would step inside and stand in the silence. Those moments would become the storyline of my ESPY speech.
All of my children; Stacy; my sister, Candy; my motherin-law; and one of Stacy’s brothers and his family all flew to Los Angeles on Monday evening, July 11, courtesy of a private jet provided by ESPN. It was such a joy to see the younger kids’ wide-eyed smiles as they boarded the plane. As soon as we landed, I was driven to the Microsoft Theater in downtown Los Angeles to rehearse my speech. Producers previewed for me the six-minute video feature that ESPN had been working on for months with Ron Howard, and it brought me to tears. To see my son Craig cry on camera, to see Stacy so bravely talk about our fight, was overwhelming. But I collected my emotions and rehearsed the speech, trying to not rely on the teleprompters.
The following day, I participated in the ESPY Celebrity Golf Classic to raise money for cancer, and that evening we attended a pre-party at a hip club in Hollywood along with Dwyane Wade and other stars. Honestly, I was tired. It had been a long few days. At 10:40 p.m., we left to return to the hotel, where I stayed up to rehearse my speech.
Wednesday afternoon was in the nineties in Southern California, and it was hot as we stepped out of our cars onto the red carpet leading into the theater. As we walked through the gauntlet of reporters, I ran into my friends Ernie Johnson and Charles Barkley and NBA commissioner Adam Silver. It must have taken more than an hour for us to get through the red carpet and to finally take our seats.
As the show got started, I grabbed Stacy’s hand. I knew that my segment was later in the show, and during an early commercial break, I took the opportunity to get up from my seat and walk out of the exit to a concourse. I found an exterior door to a parking lot and asked the security guard to allow me outside for a few minutes. So there I was, in the middle of the ESPY show, standing alone in a parking lot, rehearsing my speech three times, complete with hand gestures and pauses. I was determined to not use the teleprompter and to keep eye contact with the audience.
When I returned to my seat, NBA MVP Steph Curry took the stage to present the Arthur Ashe Courage Award to the family of Zaevion Dobson, a Knoxville, Tennessee, fifteen-year-old who was shot and killed in December 2015 while saving the lives of two of his friends. His mother, Zenobia, and brothers, Zack and Markastin, made an emotional walk up to the stage while superstar athletes cried in their seats. As Zenobia gave a brilliant, emotional, and impassioned plea to end gun violence, I cried. I cried for Zaevion, I cried for his family, I cried for children everywhere, including my own.
A week before the ESPYs, I had received a call from a producer who told me I would be presented with the ESPY Award by Vice President Joe Biden. Vice President Biden had recently launched the “Cancer Moonshot,” a campaign to finally eradicate cancer across humanity. He had lost his eldest son, Beau, in May 2015 to brain cancer, and the ESPYs were giving him a platform to raise awareness. A few months earlier, at the Final Four in Houston, the vice president had pulled me aside to express his support in my battle and to remind me that he was working on the Moonshot.
He came to the stage at the ESPYs with Beau on his mind.
Like Jimmy V, my son Beau never let cancer touch his heart, or his soul. Till the end, my Beau worried about his family more than himself. He lived his entire life by my father’s code, which was: Never explain, never complain, just get up. Just as Jimmy V’s life inspired the creation of the Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research, Beau Biden’s life and concern for others inspired the Cancer Moonshot, the national effort President Obama asked me to lead to finally end cancer as we know it. Ladies and gentlemen, it won’t be easy, but it is possible, because we are America, and like Jimmy, like Beau, and like Craig Sager and countless others, we never, ever give up. Tonight we honor Craig, a man of courage and loyalty, with a hell of a team behind him, like Jimmy and like Beau had: fans, coaches, colleagues, players, the country. But most importantly, Stacy, Kacy, Krista, Riley, Ryan, and Craig Junior. His home team, his family. Craig knows that every day, every hour, every moment matters, and by his conduct he teaches us about how to live with perseverance and passion. Fearless, hopeful, together.
As the video fe
ature played for those in the theater and around the country, detailing my fight and my unwillingness to give in, Stacy and I held hands. I was worried about breaking down during my speech, overcome with emotion and the moment. But that thought passed: I wanted the ball in my hands with the shot clock winding down.
“Give me strength,” I asked her.
“You will do great,” she told me.
When the video piece ended, the audience rose to its feet in applause, and I made my way up the steps to the stage, where I gave the vice president a hug and acknowledged the kind applause from the audience.
Walking up onto the stage was surreal and uncomfortable in a way. Here I was, the guy who has spent his life asking questions of the biggest names in sports and hanging on their every word, about to speak to them. I spotted Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and LeBron James, Peyton Manning and Kobe Bryant, all looking at me, staring in silence.
Well, first of all, thank you, Mr. Vice President, for the kind words and the struggles you had with your son Beau. Your amazing fight, your determination, dedication, putting your whole career, your whole life, forward to finding a cure for cancer. I am confident in you that one day soon, we will wipe out cancer.
I’d like to thank ESPN for this honor. Jimmy V’s inspirational message is on my phone, a constant source of encouragement and inspiration, and it is always at my bedside in the hospital and I can listen to it anytime I want. So my thoughts are with the Valvano family, because this honor means a great deal to me, so thank you very much.
I’d also like to thank my two families that are here. You saw their pictures. First, my beloved bride, Stacy. She is my heaven on earth. In the darkest of moments, tears running down her cheeks, we embraced and we prayed. “Please, don’t leave me,” she pleaded. “We can fight this together.” There is no fear in love, and your love is my strength. My children, Kacy, Craig, Krista, Riley, Ryan, my sister, Candy, Stacy’s mother, Mary Jo: my battle has been your battle.
I would also like to thank my Turner Sports family. Many of them are here tonight: David Levy, Lenny Daniels, Craig Barry, Scooter Vertino, Matt Hong, Nate Smeltz. Your love and support since my first diagnosis has been incredible, and your willingness to adapt to let me keep doing what I love is something I will never forget.
And the truth is that the Turner family is just part of a bigger family—all of you, the sports family. Sports are who I am in my soul, they have guided my life, and I have had the good fortune to witness all of your amazing feats. And I am confident that I will continue to watch those amazing feats.
I have spent most of the past year and a half at the most impactful cancer hospital in the world, MD Anderson in Houston. And many nights I don’t get out of the hospital until well after midnight, and I always take the same walking path back to the hotel. The sidewalks wind through a maze of buildings, including the Texas Children’s Hospital. Many nights, I will stop, pause, and I will go inside. And a few feet inside the hallway is this large model train display, covered by glass. There are seven buttons on the outside; they activate the trains, the circus, the toys, and the trolley. And many nights, alone, in the stillness and solitude of the hospital, I push those buttons, and I watch the trains as they disappear through the tunnels and emerge, full steam, on the other side. I watch the trains as they pass by the town square, the dinosaur canyon, the pirates’ cove, Santa Land, and the ice skating rink. And I sit there, and I watch, and I listen. I listen to the sounds of the circus, of the kids laughing, and of the train chugging along.
Now, I don’t know why I am so drawn to this train set. Perhaps it’s my life coming full circle. Maybe it’s just the kid inside all of us. Or perhaps it’s a few minutes of my life that leukemia cannot take from me.
The train actually takes two minutes and twenty seconds to make a full loop. But what is time, really? When you are diagnosed with a terminal disease like cancer, leukemia, your perception of time changes. When doctors tell you you have three weeks to live, do you try to live a lifetime of moments in three weeks, or do you say, “The hell with three weeks”? When doctors tell you that your only hope of survival is fourteen straight days of intense chemotherapy, twenty-four hours a day, do you sit there and count down the 336 hours, or do you see each day as a blessing? Time is something that cannot be bought, it cannot be wagered with God, and it is not in endless supply. Time is simply how you live your life.
I am not an expert on time or on cancer or on life itself. I am a kid from the small Illinois town of Batavia who grew up on the Chicago Cubs and made sports his life’s work—although there has never been a day where it actually seemed like work. I have run with the bulls in Pamplona; I have raced with Mario Andretti in Indianapolis; I have climbed the Great Wall of China; I have jumped out of airplanes over Kansas; I have wrestled gators in Florida; I have sailed the ocean with Ted Turner; I have swam with the sharks in the Caribbean … and I have interviewed Gregg Popovich—mid-game, Spurs down seven.
If I have learned anything through all of this, it’s that each and every day is a canvas waiting to be painted. An opportunity for love, for fun, for living, for learning.
To those of you out there who are suffering from cancer, facing adversity: I want you to know that your will to live and to fight cancer can make all the difference in the world. The way you think influences the way you feel, and the way you feel determines how you act. And to everybody out there: we are making progress—incredible progress, as the vice president said—the Moonshot program—we are going to find a cure for cancer. But we need your help: we must continue to donate, we must continue to fight, and we must continue to do this together.
I am grateful to my parents, Coral and Al. They raised me with a positive outlook on life. I always see the glass half full. I see the beauty in others, and I see the hope for tomorrow. If we don’t have hope and faith, we have nothing.
Whatever I might have imagined a terminal diagnosis would do to my spirit, it summoned quite the opposite—the greatest appreciation for life itself. So I will never give up, and I will never give in. I will continue to keep fighting, sucking the marrow out of life as life sucks the marrow out of me. I will live my life full of love and full of fun. It’s the only way I know how.
Thank you and goodnight.
EPILOGUE
After spending so much time at MD Anderson, my view on hospitals has changed. Instead of being a place of despair and last resorts, it is a place of hope, of innovation, and of possibilities. Patients know they are receiving the best treatment in the world, and their loved ones know that they are being taken care of. Patients see the results of the lifesaving clinical trials, and the doctors and nurses foster optimism. When I walk the halls of the hospitals in Atlanta and Houston and I see so many others in a great deal of pain and suffering, I am grateful that I have the resources and support to have access to the best doctors and clinical trials in the world.
I am in uncharted territory with my treatment. I am told that very few patients have two bone marrow transplants, let alone three. As of this writing, I am now two weeks post–third transplant, and I am confident I’ll make it back. I am also told that even fewer patients could have survived fourteen straight days of twenty-four-hour-a-day chemotherapy. And that yet even fewer have been given a prognosis of “three to four weeks” or “two weeks” and come out on the other side. And I’m proud to be that kind of statistic. As I write this, I have lost a great deal of my hair and my weight, but not my spirit.
I don’t know where my journey will take me next, but I do know that each and every day is a canvas, just waiting to be painted.
With the outpouring of love and wishes from so many and the impact my fight seems to have on others, I have wondered during the past few years if all of this is about serving a greater purpose. There must be some reason that I have survived three stem cell transplants and enough chemo to power New York City, and have overcome remarkable odds to still be living today. It can’t just be that God wants me to keep enjoying
my life. Perhaps God is keeping me around to give hope to others, to spread awareness, to keep life upbeat?
I truly believe that miracles do happen and that I will be a medical miracle. A positive attitude actually can have an impact on my health—something that Dr. Pemmaraju agrees with, by the way. I also believe that you can’t fight this battle alone, that you need to surround yourself with loving family and friends who will remain as positive as you.
I have very few regrets. In fact, as I write that, I realize: I don’t think I have any—though I do want to travel to one more place. When my mother died a few years ago, she was cremated, and she said she wanted her ashes spread in the wilderness of Africa. First work and then the leukemia prevented me from honoring her wishes, but I will. For now, Mom rests in my sister’s house.
I have traveled the world, been to the greatest sporting events, run the Olympic marathon course in Athens, Greece (with a few beer stops along the way), thrown out the first pitch at Wrigley Field, had five amazing kids, been in love, and met so many wonderful people. Strange as it may sound, the disease has given me the opportunity to meet even more folks and continue the cycle of positivity that has been so instrumental in getting me to where I am, which I can only describe as a place of sincere gratitude.
I was asked in an interview once what my philosophy on life was, and the answer is really rather simple: enjoy it. None of us knows when our ride is going to end. Mine may have passed by the time you read this page, or I may live another thirty years—you know which option I believe will happen!
As I lie in a hospital bed in Houston, my mind takes me to the milestones yet to be reached that I want to bear witness to: the dramatic end-of-game shots that make mortals into immortals; the crowning of new champions; the simplicity and rhythm of a midsummer night’s baseball game with no bearing on the standings. I want to see it all.
