Nodes of Gold #3

Today: a very special edition of Nodes of Gold, our ongoing feature that chronicles the lives of famous people who have been diagnosed with Lymphoma.

In this edition: Athletes with Lymphoma. We'll say it's in honor of Jon Lester. Just in case you missed it, here's the last out of his no hitter, and the celebration afterwards. (Click the link, or see below.) It was taken by a fan sitting behind home plate. Very cool to see, but the official game video was better, especially the hug that his manager, Terry Francona, gave him. (You may recall that I have a personal letter from Mr. Francona.) Unfortunately, Major League Baseball won't make the official video readily available anymore, so we'll have to go with this one.

I'm playing with embedded videos now, not just giving links to other sites. I think it adds something. But I'll keep the links in until I know the embedding is working for everyone. Let me know. Here's the embedded Lester video:




As awesome as he is, Lester isn't the only athlete to come back from Lymphoma and play again at his chosen sport, though he's arguably the one who has had the most success upon his return, even in his very short career.

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Mario Lemieux is perhaps one of the greatest hockey players of all time, and has the second coolest French name of any professional hockey player, after Guy LaFleur. Lemieux was drafted in 1984 by the Pittsburgh Penguins, and scored a goal on his very first shot in the National Hockey League. (It came against the Boston Bruins, unfortunately.) In 1993, he announced he had Hodgkins Lymphoma, and underwent a series of radiation treatments during the season, leaving the team for a couple of months. On the day of his last treatment, he flew to Philadelphia to play a game against the Flyers. He was given a standing ovation by the Philadelphia crowd, who rarely cheer for anyone. (This is the city whose sports fans booed Santa Claus, remember.)

The Penguins won 17 stratight games after he returned. He retired four years later, with three MVPs and five scoring titles, and was voted to the Hockey Hall of Fame. Two years later, he saved the Penguns from bankruptcy, buying the team, and eventually coming back to play for them again the next year, becoming the firsr player/owner in the league.

He started the Mario Lemieux Foundation soon after his diagnosis. It initially provided funding for Lymphoma research, but now it funds a number of other cancer- and child-related causes. In 2002, a Pittsburgh radio host said he would donate $66,000 to the Foundation if Lemieux ever scored a goal off a face-off. Lemieux did the deed that very night:



And yes, I included a hockey player just to make my brother happy. Otherwise I wouldn't have bothered.

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Next up: Paul Azinger. Azinger is a pro golfer; at the height of his career, he spent about 300 weeks ranked in the top 10 on the PGA Tour. And he was born in Massachusetts, which makes him even cooler than a pro golfer with lymphoma who was born in, say, Arkansas.

In 1987, Azinger finished one shot behind the leader in the U.S. Open. In 1993, he won his only Major, the PGA Championship. Later that year, he began having shoulder problems, and the pain in his right shoulder was soon diagnosed as a symptom of Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. He described the experience of being diagnosed in a piece for Links Newsletter. His chemotherapy and radiation were successful, and he is now in remission.

He still golfs on the Pro Tour, and in 2000 he won the Sony Open in Hawaii. He also competed in the Main Event of the 2006 World Series of Poker. So that makes him a "two sport star," if you want to call either golf or poker a sport, but since ESPN does, I guess we'll have to acknowledge them as such.

This might look like a photo, but it's really an embedded video. It's just that golf is so damn slow....

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Finally, my second favorite PAL (Pro Athlete with Lymphoma) after Jon Lester: Joe Andruzzi.

Andruzzi played guard for the New England Patriots from 2000-2005, earning three Super Bowl Rings. He had played a few years for the Packers before playing for the Pats, and played for the Browns for two years after his time in New England. He has three brothers who are New York firefighters; one narrowly escaped from the World Trade Center on 9/11.




I can't find decent video of Andruzzi playing, but I do have this video of him with other members of the Patriots singing "Friends in Low Places" at a benefit. Andruzzi is the big guy with a beard.



Besides his Patriots connection, there are two things that make Andruzzi have Nodes of Gold. First, he is a graduate of Southern Connecticut State University, home of the Fighting Owls, and of my bi-weekly paycheck. Second, he's an NHL survivor. He was diagnosed last year with Burkitt's Lymphoma, which is very rare (only about 500 new cases each year) and very aggressive (tumors can double in size in 24 hours). SportsIllutsrated.com published a nice article about him and his recovery earlier this year.

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There are a bunch more people from the world of sports that have been diagnosed with Lymphoma, and returned to their sports, including Mark Fields, a linebacker for the Saints, Panthers, and Rams; John Cullen, who played for four National Hockey League teams, including the Hartford Whalers; and Butch Davis, coach of University of North Carolina football team, former coach of the University of Miami and of the Cleveland Browns.




Lymphoma is a funny thing, isn't it? Doesn't seem to be one of those cancers that you can blame something else on -- smoking, working in a pesticide factory, whatever. Even the healthiest of our world, our pro atheletes, can be affected.



Athletes earn their Nodes of Gold by showing us that life isn't over after diagnosis, or after treatment. There's even an article in a sports medicine journal that lets me know that even after treatment, I'll still be running those 10 minute miles with the rest of the OFS (old fat and slow) runners out there.


Here's to you, Jon, Mario, Paul, and Joe, and you other lympho atheletes. You have Nodes of Gold!