Coach Jokes In His Battle With Cancer

Boise State football coach Pokey Allen is the first to joke about his bald head. Unless, his staff or close friends beat him to it.

The Boise State football coach, diagnosed with cancer in late December, looks like Telly Savalas or Uncle Fester with the Addams Family.

“I’m surprised people look at me funny because I forget I look different,” said Allen, who had his last few hairs shaved off Tuesday, just four days after his first serious batch of chemotherapy treatments on the tissue cancer in his right tricep.

“My staff makes fun of me, but they would make fun of me even if I had my legs cut off,” he said.

The grapefruit-sized tumor in his tricep has shrunk by half and is tentatively scheduled to be removed in early March.

He looks fit, still runs four days a week and is working hard on the Broncos’ new recruiting class that will be “our greatest ever or just really good depending on how many battles we win with the Pac-10 schools.”

In just his second year, Allen revived the Broncos, taking them to the national championship game in December.

Allen is slowly introducing health food into his diet. He abandoned his 20-cups-a-day coffee habit and stays home more instead of going downtown at night.

“I had to give up either coffee or beer, and I made the proper choice,” Allen, 51, said.

His only complaints are periodic bouts with fatigue and some indigestion.

“The chemotherapy isn’t fun, but I haven’t had a bad day yet,” said Allen, who has been given a 50 to 60 percent chance of surviving the cancer.

“Things are going quite well. He’s been wanting the tumor to shrink and he’s very happy about that,” said Dr. Carolyn Collins, director of medical oncology at the Cancer Treatment Center at St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center.

Allen experienced his first sign of trouble Wednesday when his white blood cell count dropped to zero.

“That’s a good thing,” Allen explained. “They try to kill all the cancerous cells (which decreases the white cells), then stimulate new, healthy ones.”

The trouble is, Allen felt sick and tired, and was in danger of exposing himself to infections.

He is scheduled for another cycle of chemotherapy, probably around the end of the month.

On Wednesday, he met with his team for the first time since the national championship game in West Virginia, and set some goals.

“He looks really good,” sophomore wide receiver Ryan Ikebe said. “Nothing has changed in his personality. He’s still joking around. Everybody on the team thought he looked just great.”

“I don’t worry about things I can’t control. … I am a little concerned about the fall. I worry about whether I can still do a good job,” Allen said.

“The chemo hasn’t affected me too much yet, but I can see the cumulative effect. Will I still have the energy to do what I need to do?”