Boeheim supports Fews’ good deed

Gonzaga University men’s basketball coach Mark Few and his wife, Marcy, have modeled their annual Coaches vs. Cancer Golf Classic and BasketBall Gala after the black-tie event Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim and his wife, Juli, have put on back in central New York for the last six years.

The Fews are staging their fourth golf outing and gala this weekend, and one of the honored guests is Boeheim himself, who arrived Friday afternoon in time to play 11 holes of golf during a practice round at Spokane Country Club.

Boeheim, a cancer survivor who lost both his mother and father to the disease, has been a driving force behind the partnership of the American Cancer Society and the National Association of Basketball Coaches and, to date, has helped raise close to $3 million for cancer research.

He is one of six coaches nationwide who put on annual charity events like those he and the Fews have organized.

“We’d like to get that number to 15 or 20,” Boeheim said Friday afternoon.

Not surprisingly, Boeheim was involved in Coaches vs. Cancer several years before being diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2001. The reason, he said, was because of what he saw the disease do to his parents and several of his close friends in the college coaching ranks, including the late Jim Valvano.

“It was a combination of all those things and the fact that I knew this was something, as basketball coaches, we could all go to work on that first got me involved,” Boeheim explained. “Even though we’re not raising a huge amount of dollars, we’re raising a lot of dollars, and we’re getting a lot of people involved.

“I think it’s just a great enterprise, and I’m as proud of it as anything I’ve done, really.”

Boeheim was forced take a brief leave of absence after undergoing surgery for his prostate cancer, but missed only 10 days of practice. And a year later, he led Syracuse to the 2003 NCAA men’s basketball championship.

“It’s as much about awareness as it is raising money,” he said of his passionate involvement in Coaches vs. Cancer. “Because of what I went through, I still have people who have been diagnosed with cancer calling me to ask questions about what to expect.”

In Boeheim’s case, the surgery and subsequent rehabilitation went extremely well.

“I knew what I had going in,” he said. “My prostate was enlarged, which had been an ongoing problem. And once I made the decision to have the operation, it was over and done with and I was back coaching within 10 days.

“And I felt better than I had felt in a long time, because I had cleared up all of my problems. Because of the improvement in technology and the skill level of doctors these days, people don’t have the same kinds of problems my parents had.”

Boeheim’s mother died when she was 57 years old. His father passed away at age 66.

But in the years since their deaths, Boeheim has seen enough in the way of improved technology to convince him that all types of cancer can eventually be cured – as long as charity events like he and the Fews put on continue to prosper.