Games pale in comparison

[Tammo29@xxxxxxx]

Games pale in comparison to Rudy T's looming health crisis

By FRAN BLINEBURY
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle

Coaches are always dealing with adversity. 

Missed plays. Bad decisions. Lost games. 

They are the ones who wear out their thumbs hitting the rewind button for the 
videotape machine, fretting over how to fix things. They are the ones who 
stay up all night long, worrying about what might go wrong next. 

Rudy Tomjanovich will have tests done today at Methodist Hospital and a 
biopsy performed to determine whether an abnormality that has shown up on his 
bladder is cancerous. 

"A lot of emotions go through you," he said. "Fear is one." 

These are the times when real life careens through an intersection in these 
games we take so seriously and hits you head-on. 

One minute there seems to be nothing more important than the next game, the 
next matchup, the next call by the referees. 

The next minute, there are traces of blood in your urine and the only X's and 
O's and statistics that truly matter are the ones that show up on a lab 
chart. 

"The doctors have made me feel comfortable," Tomjanovich said. "But nobody 
feels comfortable in this situation." 

Because he is a public figure, his life quite literally will be under the 
microscope over the next few days. Yet this is a situation that is most 
difficult in the private confines of his family, his wife, two daughters and 
son. 

When a man spends so much of his time out there in front of the world, first 
as a player, then for all of those seasons, stomping, whistling, suffering 
and celebrating on the sidelines, he becomes bigger than life in one way and 
yet something less than an average human being in another. 

It is easy to question every bit of strategy, each substitution, each 
personnel move and forget that through the heart of a champion beats real blo
od. 

There he was pumping his fist into the air Sunday night following a crucial 
85-75 win by the Rockets over the Suns as a joyous crowd of 15,717 erupted 
with the sounds of joy from days past. 

There he was sitting on a chair in the middle of the locker room just a short 
time later, breaking the news of his medical condition to his players and 
telling them he wouldn't be joining them for the start of the five-game trip 
to the West Coast. 

What had been a cacophony of youthful glee, with the players basking in the 
glow of Yao Ming's terrific clutch performance down the stretch and the big 
plays made all night long by Steve Francis, Kelvin Cato and Glen Rice, turned 
suddenly silent. You could have heard a sneaker drop. 

Tomjanovich told his players not to worry. He told them they would be in good 
hands with Larry Smith at the interim helm and capably assisted by Jim Boylen 
and Mike Wells. 

But his hands trembled as he spoke and his voice cracked. 

"You get older," Tomjanovich, 54, said. "These things happen and you have to 
deal with them." 

He first had suffered a bladder infection about a month ago, had it treated 
and figured all was well. But follow-up tests revealed the abnormality. Even 
if the biopsy proves positive, according to his doctors, the prognosis is 
good through topical treat for a full recovery. 

In this NBA season alone, Dallas head coach Don Nelson has undergone surgery 
for prostate cancer and Lakers coach Phil Jackson had kidney stones removed. 
In the college ranks, UConn's Jim Calhoun and Syracuse's Jim Boeheim have had 
prostate surgery. 

But who wants to be next? So Tomjanovich got the news he needed the tests 
late last week, before the game against the Bulls, and had kept it pretty 
much to himself. 

"He's a big man, not saying a thing to us like that," Cuttino Mobley said. "I 
don't know how he did it. We're out there playing games that we think are a 
big thing in life and he's dealing with this." 

They are the unexpected twists in the highway of big-time sports, the things 
that intrude occasionally to remind us of how ephemeral and silly it is when 
you boil it down. 

Late in the fourth quarter, after a 24-point halftime lead had shrunk all the 
way to just six, Yao took the ball on the wing, looked into the middle and 
spun on the baseline past Phoenix's Jake Tsakalidis for a roaring slam dunk. 
A few moments earlier, Francis had missed a 3-pointer, but grabbed his 
rebound, lifted off an rammed it home. 

"I was so proud of the way these young guys played today," Tomjanovich said. 
"They made me feel good." 

After several days of feeling bad and a weekend of keeping things mostly to 
himself. 

He finally shared his situation with everyone because for three decades now, 
so much of his life has been shared with Houston. From the time he spent two 
days in intensive care fighting for his life after the punch by Kermit 
Washington, to his battles with alcohol, to his climb to the top with the 
back-to-back NBA championships. 

"It's easy to be a good guy when they're hanging banners for you," he said. 
"I'll try to be a strong guy through adversity." 

That's real life. That's Rudy T. 

Best wishes, buddy. 
                                  **********************************


TAM