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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Carlesimo prepares for next challenge


Carlesimo
 (The Spokesman-Review)
Steve Kelley The Seattle Times

LAS VEGAS – The San Antonio Spurs were preparing to leave for Dallas for the third game of their 2006 Western Conference semifinal playoff series, when Carolyn Carlesimo got the bad news from her biopsy tests.

She had Hodgkin’s lymphoma and would have to endure the tedious ordeal of chemotherapy and radiation treatments. The long-term prognosis was good, but the short-term experience would be exhausting and tortuous.

For her husband, P.J., then an assistant with the Spurs, these were the most difficult and draining days in another long, challenging NBA season. Now, suddenly, his wife’s illness was changing his perspective on the series and on his values.

Instead of preparing a game plan to beat the Mavericks, he and Carolyn were listening to strategies to beat cancer. While Carolyn prepared for chemo, P.J. agonized over his choices.

Should he leave the team at this most crucial time of the season? Take care of the kids and Carolyn? Or should he continue to do his job, work through all of the worry and hurt that comes with the news that a spouse has cancer and keep coaching.

“Pop (Spurs coach Gregg Popovich) would say to me, ‘What are you doing at practice? Go home and take care of your wife. Deal with that,’ ” Carlesimo said Sunday afternoon. “And Carolyn was saying to me, ‘What are you doing at home? Go to practice.’ “

Carolyn’s chemo was scheduled to begin the day after the seventh game of the Dallas series, which meant, if the Spurs beat the Mavericks, they would be preparing for another Western Conference finals.

“She told me I had to coach,” Carlesimo said.

The Spurs, however, lost the seventh game to Dallas and the decisions were made for them. Carlesimo was able to be with his wife for all of her chemo.

“Sure, it changes you. Sure, it gives you some perspective,” Carlesimo said. “I mean, that’s the real world, not what we coaches do for a living. That stuff is real life. It makes you think about your core values. I think one thing it taught me was not to take myself too seriously.”

Carolyn’s program of radiation and chemotherapy was successful. A little more than a year removed from the diagnosis, she is healthy again. She is examined every three months, eventually that will expand to every six months and, after five years of negative tests, she will officially be declared cancer free.

Now they begin a new phase of their lives, in a new city, in a much different set of difficult circumstances. Carlesimo is the new head coach of the Seattle Sonics, a franchise in limbo, waiting for a new arena and threatening to move.

It is a team that won a mere 31 games last season. Fixing it is a monumental challenge.

This is his first job as head coach since he was fired in 1999 by Golden State. He comes to Seattle with a reputation for being as tough as any coach in the game.

Carlesimo, 58, is a grinder and understands there will be times in the course of this next long season he will push players too hard, too far.

“Absolutely,” he said. “No question I will. But I think I’d be making a big mistake if I came in here walking on egg shells. (General manager) Sam Presti and (owner) Clay Bennett hired me to coach. If I don’t push guys and don’t get on ‘em, then I’m not doing a good job. I’m not doing what I should be doing.”