Companions in Courage

by Pat LaFontaine

  Testicular cancer’s rate of recurrence is low, around 6 percent, but Jon Brianas had unfortunately defied the odds. Two days after Christmas, he began chemotherapy.

  There were three rounds of chemo, each twenty-one days long. After the final series, near the end of February, Brianas arrived a few minutes late for a lacrosse team meeting. He could not believe what he saw when he walked in the door.

  “The entire team had shaved their heads because they knew I had lost my hair because of the treatments,” he said. “There are a lot of moments I will remember for the rest of my life. And that was definitely one of them.”

  Jon Brianas, puffing and wheezing and catching a chill, led his teammates in their exercises whenever he could. He missed five games, suited up but didn’t play in the next, and then made his return to the field on March 29, 2000. In his return he scored a goal in Navy’s 17–2 victory over Air Force.

  “The first time I got a pass, it bounced off my chest, but we got it back,” he said. “Then they moved the ball around again and this time I caught the pass and shot. Then I saw the back of the net move.”

  Midfielder Adam Borcz ran up to him and said the sweetest words any athlete making so difficult a return can ever hear: “That’s the one. Now you are back. Now you are back.”

  42

  Jim Morris

  A deal is a deal. And what a deal Jim Morris made.

  When the high school baseball team from Reagan County High in Big Lake, Texas, bargained with its coach, the boys knew it might be the only way they were going to stop him from pitching batting practice. They’d seen enough of his ninety-mile-an-hour fastball. So they negotiated. If the team won the district title, the coach would agree to go to a big-league tryout camp. Jim Morris, even though he thought he had no chance, agreed.

  The team won the title. And in June Morris headed off to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays’ major league tryout camp in Brownwood, Texas.

  Now what are the odds of a thirty-five-year-old high school science teacher and baseball coach becoming a professional baseball player? Improbable? Yes. Impossible? Obviously not, because Jim became one of the oldest rookies to ever make it to the major leagues.

  When Jim Morris took the mound for the first day of tryouts, he was so nervous that he could hardly hold the ball. He took a deep breath, doing his best to keep his heart from jumping out of his chest. Trying desperately to remember what he had been teaching his players about pitching under pressure, he stepped into his windup and let the ball go. His first pitch was clocked at ninety miles per hour.

  Jim kept throwing strikes, at one point tossing twelve pitches in the ninety-eight-mile-per-hour range. The Devil Rays invited him back to the second day of tryouts, and his stunning success continued. Morris signed a minor-league contract and started his career with the Durham Bulls of the International League. After distinguishing himself there, he was called up to the major-league club in September 1999.

  Royce Clayton stood facing the newest Tampa Bay rookie, thinking that this was his chance to break out of a hitting slump. In four pitches eclipsing ninety miles an hour, he was gone. Jim Morris struck out the first batter he faced as a major-league pitcher. His next stop was Anaheim, pitching against the likes of Mo Vaughn, Jim Edmonds, and Tim Salmon. Morris had an advantage against these guys—he had used their hitting videos to teach his high schoolers how to bat.

  What a strange journey to the place he had longed to go. When Jim Morris came out of high school in 1983, he was drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers. Because of shoulder and elbow injuries he never made it out of Class A. He retired in 1989, went back to college, and ended up in Big Lake, coaching baseball and teaching chemistry and physics.

  Well, the teaching career is on hold. The Devil Rays are so impressed with Morris, they are sending him to the Arizona Fall League. Doug Gassaway, who scouted Morris when he came out of high school, says that Morris has one of the best left arms in baseball. Big Lake’s excitement shows itself in the school’s new decor—Morris’s clippings now cover the walls of Reagan County High.

  Keep throwing strikes, Jim. Never stop pitching.

  43

  Michelle Akers

  The player-coach dialogue went something like this:

  “How much playing time can I have today, Coach?”

  “Let’s try forty-five minutes.”

  “Not good enough. I want ninety.”

  “What are you trying to prove? Sixty.”

  “Come on. Seventy-five.”

  “Seventy.”

  You know this can’t be hockey. We only have sixty minutes, and when your skating time is cut back, it’s the first step toward the bench.

  This was Michelle Akers, hero of the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team. Her sport was her life, but it was also killing her.

  Think of her as Michelle Aching. She literally threw herself into the game and at the opponents. And she paid for it. The list of injuries included knee injuries (“Twelve or thirteen,” she says, “I forget.”), a few concussions, and three fractured bones below her eye. But her body spoke to her in even more serious ways.

  For years the world-class competitor battled exhaustion. Early in her thirteen-year career, after the 1991 World Championships, Michelle was constantly drained. Migraines became a part of her daily life.

  “I slept all the time,” she recalls. “But I had no energy.”

  The medical diagnosis was “fatigue and lethargy due to the demands of her grueling schedule.” Sometimes after a practice a friend would have to drive Michelle home and put her to bed.

  “All my dreams rely on my physical ability and energy,” she says. “Not being able to be active would change who I am, and that was extremely scary. My strength, my stamina, my energy, my self-reliance and independence—all gone. Nothing I had relied on in my past was there for me anymore.”

  Akers tried to hide the extent of her struggle. “It was like when you have those nightmares, and you know there’s a monster in the closet. You know you should look, but you don’t. So you continue to be fearful of the monster but you ignore it. That’s how I was with this illness.”

  In 1994 the monster broke out. During a match Michelle became delirious on the field. She wandered around out of position. When the team left for halftime, she stayed out and someone had to get her. This time it couldn’t be chalked up to a tough schedule. Finally she remembers saying, “I’m not just tired. I’m sick. There’s something wrong.”

  She saw an internist and journeyed through a medical trial-and-error diagnosis. Four months went by. Then her problem got a name: chronic fatigue syndrome. Bingo. Relief. Something to tackle.

  For the next two years Michelle began to listen more carefully to her body and her spirit. She began to change the messages that drove her to the all-or-nothing training programs and full-throttle performances. She learned to control her eagerness. On the field, Michelle willingly converted from the greatest striker in the game to the greatest defensive midfielder. She no longer roamed the opponents’ penalty box and then exhausted herself in retreat. She followed a new rule: Walk when you don’t have to run and jog when you don’t have to sprint.

  Off the field, she worked with Paul Cheney, a doctor she met through her study of her disease. He changed her diet, while the team doctor began a program of IVs of electrolyte replacement solution to enhance recovery after a game.

  She sought a balance between the needs of her game and the desire of her spirit. The label of “trainaholic” had to go, and she had to alter her schedule. She needed to travel less, play more, pray more, and see the beauty of life as well as the beauty of a well-struck ball sailing toward the corner of the net.

  Michelle committed to more honesty in her relationship with herself, others, and God. “I don’t know how to explain it without sounding syrupy,” she says, “but Christianity became my strength. It gave me peace of mind. As a Christian, you know that things don’t happen without a purpose. You know that God is doing something and you’ve go
t to trust that. In fact the illness brought me back to him.

  “I think the challenge is to take these difficult and painful times and turn them into something beneficial, something that makes you grow.”

  44

  Jamie McLennan

  For Jamie McLennan, a twenty-one-year-old rookie, signing with the New York Islanders of the National Hockey League brought his dream to the edge of reality. Stardom couldn’t be far off.

  As a free agent at the end of the 1996 season, Jamie began pursuing a starting role elsewhere in the league. Hey, change is good. And life was good for this quiet, laid-back goalie, who thrived on the thought of establishing himself in the game he loved so much. He was riding high in his athletic and personal life, but he would face something more frightening than a wicked slap shot from the point.

  In May 1996 Jamie spent a night with what he thought was a gut-wrenching case of the flu. The fever and vomiting would not relent. Maybe it was food poisoning. Twice he visited the emergency room, and then checked into the hospital in Lethbridge, Alberta.

  The attending physician monitored his condition carefully and ordered intravenous medication. A rash developed and black spots appeared on his arms and legs. The doctors, recognizing signs of a potentially fatal disease— bacterial meningitis—said, “We’d better call your parents. You might not make it.” The symptoms of this disease that inflames the membranes around the brain and spinal cord were now advanced. By the time Darlene and Stuart arrived, Jamie was fighting for his life.

  Standing in front of the net and being blitzed in a 9–0 shutout would be mild compared to the next five days of head-spinning delirium and a raging fever. Jamie was so drained that when the fever finally broke, it was days before he was even able to manage a few steps without a walker. His eyes were sunken and puffy and his flesh had a yellow tint.

  “I’ll never forget how I looked,” Jamie remembers. “Like it wasn’t me.” But he began to recover. His positive attitude, his sense of humor (the nurses told his parents he never stopped joking throughout the ordeal), and his dream of returning to the game he loved fueled his recovery. After what Darlene describes as “a dreadful, dreadful few weeks,” Jamie returned home to Edmonton. He had lost thirty pounds and literally had to teach himself to walk again.

  I remember so clearly the helplessness and frustration I experienced in my own recovery. I had always been able to do what I wanted. To be reduced to such an out-of-control state truly challenged my capacity to cope. Though Jamie endured a great deal of pain, his mind was clear. With so much time on his hands, and so little he could actively do, he contemplated and sorted out life and death.

  “I learned not to take anything for granted,” he recalls. “I can get out of bed in the morning. I wasn’t able to do that when I was sick. When I was in the hospital there were kids who were sick and dying. I just think we’re very fortunate to have our health.”

  Just two months into his recovery, in July 1996, the St. Louis Blues signed Jamie as a free agent. With training camp so close and his rehabilitation still ongoing, he did not have the strength to beat out veteran Jon Casey for the backup spot on the roster behind Grant Fuhr. He spent the 1997 season with the Blues’ minor-league affiliate in Worcester, Massachusetts. He played well and was ready to put his name on the 1998 roster for the parent club. But another obstacle blocked the comeback path.

  Earlier in the summer, the Blues had signed free agent Rich Parent to be the backup to Fuhr for the 1998 season. They penciled McLennan back at Worcester for another season. But Jamie had worked too hard to allow that. He beat out Parent and Brent Johnson for the backup role behind Fuhr for the 1998 season. He was solid. His 16-8-2 record and 2.17 goals-against average, accompanied by his two victories over the Dallas Stars, told the world he’d come all the way back.

  His relentless approach and gutty performance throughout the year won Jamie the 1998 Masterton Trophy, an award for the player who exhibits perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to hockey. He proved his ability, character, and commitment to excellence. I am proud to have him on the list of Companions in Courage.

  Jamie McLennan, sick as he was, could have spent his time singing the blues. Instead he impressed the heck out of the Blues and all of us.

  SECTION 8

  Escaping the

  Darkness

  45

  Seymour Knox

  My success in hockey has opened doors and given me opportunities for which I am grateful. When I was asked to go see Seymour Knox III when he was very ill near the end of his life, another special event took place. When the last game was played in the Buffalo Sabres’ old arena, known as The Aud, the organization wanted the closing to be memorable. Sure, Marine Midland Arena would have all the amenities the old building lacked, but it would not have history or Seymour’s presence.

  Everyone knew that Seymour, the team’s owner, would probably not make it to the celebration because of the advanced state of his illness. As I sat with him that last time, he held my hand. We both had tears in our eyes, and he talked about how much he was going to miss not being there. Seymour had talked to his wife, Jean, about putting his initials on the new jerseys as a way of being with the team even after he was gone.

  I felt very fortunate to play in that last game. We beat Hartford 4–1, and after the game, three players—one from each decade of the Sabres’ history—took the puck and skated it around the rink. They waved to the crowd and shot the puck into the net. It was a high honor for me to be chosen to shoot the last puck. I skated around the rink, stopped in front of the net, waved to the crowd, and shot the last puck in the net. The whole building went dark except for a spotlight that illuminated the puck.

  Emotions ran high for everyone in attendance that evening, whether on the ice or in the seats. Farewells are like that. I felt as though I was waving and saying thank you on behalf of all of the players to the great building and to all the fans who had supported the Sabres for over thirty years. Seymour, in one of his last speeches, had referred to The Aud as an old friend he was saying good-bye to. The Aud had been like a friend to all of us. I’ll never forget him sitting behind the bench during every game wearing headphones and listening to the radio and watching at the same time with Jean beside him. He loved the game. And he loved the players like we were his family.

  After I shot the puck in the net for the last time, I made sure one of the guards grabbed it so the players could give it to Seymour at the end-of-the-year dinner party. Kenny Martin, a good friend of mine who works in the office, was able to put together a nice plaque that read, “Farewell Old Friend.” It was our way of saying the same thing to Seymour. We gave Seymour the puck mounted on that plaque. That puck was very special to Seymour. And that’s what made Seymour so special—the little things in life meant so much to him. Friendships, compassion, caring, the gifts, and all the people who had supported the Sabres meant the world to him. That puck expressed how we felt about him and the old Aud.

  I remember him holding my hand before he died and saying proudly to his wife, “Show Pat where I put the puck.” I hugged Seymour and told him that I and all the players loved him. Jean took me into his favorite room and there, by his favorite chair, sat the plaque with the puck. Three years later, at my retirement party, Jean presented me with that puck and said, “Seymour would want you to have this.” And I have it hanging up in my office.

  When I read Mitch Albom’s moving book Tuesdays with Morrie, I thought very much about Seymour. Seymour and I loved the game of hockey and even though our social and life circles were different, we were able to connect with each other on a very deep level. We had a desire to care and express our compassion for others. We talked about how we felt blessed and how we wanted to be a part of the community and give back to it in genuine, helpful ways. I felt very fortunate that I was able to mean that much to a man like Seymour. He had told me that he thought of me as another one of his sons.

  Recalling my relationship with Seymour filled m
e with gratitude. I was also grateful to my psychologist, Ernie Valutis, and the doctors at the Mayo Clinic for their work that helped me return from the darkness of depression, enabling me once again to see the good things in life and to savor them fully. Getting to know Seymour in that time before his death, feeling his love and compassion for me as a human being and simply being with him at his most vulnerable times before he died, remains a part of me that I cherish deeply.

  I remember him holding my hands and telling me his thoughts about death and life. He wanted to have a happy funeral and he wanted everybody not to worry. Even though he had withered away and the cancer had eaten away at him, his spirit was vibrant and alive. In his book about Morrie, Albom wrote of how he picked up his old and ailing college professor to move him to a more comfortable position. I did the same with Seymour. I’ll never forget lifting him up and seeing the love, confidence, and trust in his eyes. And I’ll never forget the spring day that Jean called me to come and visit him. She told me that Seymour wanted to see me Sunday if I could come. She told me that he was ready to see me because he was going to die soon. He passed away that Wednesday.

  Speaking at Seymour’s funeral proved to be one of the hardest things I think I ever had to do. I sat there listening to his son speak and I felt very honored that Seymour included me like a son after so many years of his life and the many acquaintances and many people he knew. I feel fortunate that he chose me and I feel lucky that our paths crossed.