by Stuart Scott
“Come see me after the game,” Payton said.
The Bears, just a few years removed from their dominant Super Bowl season, destroyed the Steelers in the game. Afterward, Merril found his idol at midfield. Payton, seeing his young opponent, started removing his gear—wristbands, elbow pads—and signing them for Hoge. Merril’s dad was above the tunnel in the stands and took a photo of the Steelers walking through the tunnel after their shellacking. All the players had their heads down, their expressions grim after their whuppin’. But there was Merril, rocking a big ol’ grin, hands held high, showing off all of Walter’s stuff.
In 2003, Merril was diagnosed with stage 2 non-Hodgkins lymphoma. It was clear he took the same lesson I did from Payton’s example. “It is beatable,” Merril said at the time. “You have everything in you to do it. The mind is a powerful thing. There is no doubt, come May, I’ll be cancer-free. Five years after that, I’ll be cured. Fifty years or whatever time I have left after that, it will be the platform I stand for. I’ll be a better man. This has been a blessing.” Today, he is cancer-free.
In addition to Payton, my other hero was Ali. I just revered him for his resilience. Wallace D. Muhammad, the brother of Ali’s manager, Herbert Muhammad, married a childhood friend of my mom’s. They lived down the street from my cousins, Anthony and David (who were actually more like brothers to me). One time, when I was about six, the champ visited our neighborhood. I remember putting my fist up against his. Wow.
I knew his story early on. To me, he was a poet, an artist, and a performer, but also the baddest man on the planet. You want to talk toughness? How about the rope-a-dope? Who would come up with a strategy that has him getting thumped by the biggest blows of the baddest punchers in history—including George Foreman—only to turn the tables on his opponents once they tired themselves out? The toughest dawg out there, that’s who. He decided to take the worst punishment these assassins could dish out, convinced that it would only make him stronger in the end—one of the most courageous things I’d ever seen.
But it paled in comparison to the fact that he sacrificed three years of his career in his prime and faced going to jail to stand up for what he believed in. To stand up for peace. I was too young to know or grasp all the details, but I knew that it took the ultimate in guts to do what Ali did. Talk about being alone and staring down the odds. Everybody was against him.
That resonated with me at the youngest of ages because it reminded me of my dad. Standing up for what you believed in—being principled—is what my dad was all about. Whenever I heard Ali talk, I heard the virtues and values that my dad spoke of and embodied.
In the epic Ali–Frazier showdowns, I was an Ali guy through and through, but I’ve also gotta give props to Smokin’ Joe, a serious tough guy in his own right. During their legendary first fight—won by Frazier in fifteen grueling rounds—the two warriors were slugging it out in the center of the ring when Ali, always looking for an edge, tried to get inside his rival’s head.
“I’m God, Joe Frazier,” he taunted, throwing jabs. “You can’t beat me. I’m God.”
Frazier bobbed and weaved, before rising up with a counterpunch in reply. “Well, God,” he said as he let loose a combination of blows. “You in the wrong place tonight.”
I can’t say that, in the days leading up to and following my first cancer surgery, I consciously thought of all these influences—Payton’s toughness, Ali’s principled stand, Frazier’s doggedness—but I suspect that resilience is at least in part a learned trait. You get tough by seeing toughness in others. And I needed to get tough right quick. I didn’t have a choice. I was telling my girls we were going to face this head-on. As Payton and Ali had done for me, I needed to model toughness for them.
After the surgery, I was still groggy when Dr. Milsom arrived. He was direct and to the point, which I appreciated. He’d cut me open from my chest to just above my belly button, leaving behind a big ol’ twelve-inch scar. “We took out part of your large intestine and some lymph nodes,” he said. “The large intestine was not cancerous. We took out twenty-eight lymph nodes. The nine that were closest to the appendix had cancer. We got all the cancer that we saw.” There was no sign that the cancer had spread to the colon, kidneys, or lungs. He didn’t tell me what stage I had or what the prognosis was. I didn’t ask.
Instead, we talked plan of attack. Cancer cells start microscopically, he explained. In case there were some bad cells he hadn’t seen, he wanted me to start a six-month round of chemotherapy once I had healed. It was late November. I targeted late December for my return to ESPN, after which I’d start chemo. Dr. Milsom shook my hand and turned to go. I was about to be alone. I was nervous. I was afraid. But I thought: Here we go.
• • •
WHEN I FIRST GOT DIAGNOSED, just about every executive at ESPN went out of their way to tell me the same thing: We got you. You wouldn’t know these guys just from watching ESPN, but, more so than the talent, they’re the reason the network has become as big as it is. And yet they’re all so grounded. To a man, the suits—George Bodenheimer, John Skipper, John Wildhack, Mark Gross, Norby Williamson—all told me the same thing: “You take care of this first. Your job will be waiting for you.”
Typical of those guys—they always put me first. I couldn’t wait to get back to work, though, because I didn’t want to sit at home doing nothing but worrying about being sick. I was scheduled to be the studio host for the Christmas Day game between the Lakers and the Suns (Kobe versus Steve Nash), but I wanted to make my first return on SportsCenter. That was home. I asked if I could, and my bosses were more than happy to have me anchor on December 23.
Even though I wanted to be back on-air, the truth is I was nervous about returning to the ESPN newsroom. I’d received an outpouring of support, and I was touched by all the well-wishers. But only a month into this fight, I was already experiencing what I’d come to call the Burden. There’s not any time of any day that you forget you have cancer. You never have a moment when you say to yourself, Hey, wow, I forgot I have cancer.
That’s exhausting, man. It becomes part of your identity, and it only adds to your fatigue to have the same conversation about it over and over again throughout every day. I had so many people at ESPN coming up to me saying, “Hey, how are you doing?” I hated it—which doesn’t mean I didn’t appreciate them. They meant well. But this cancer thing was on my mind every minute of the day—I wasn’t looking to talk about it all day, too.
One day, late in the afternoon, I’d had enough of the parade. One guy came into my office and said, “Hey, man, how you doing?”
I’m a big believer in speaking my truth. Always have been—having cancer has only underscored for me how healthy it is to be filter-free. Plus, I was fed up. “Let me ask you something, man,” I said to this well-meaning colleague. “How come this is, like, the first time you’ve ever been in my office?”
There was some stunned silence and an abrupt about-face. Like I said, I know I was rude. But the dude had never been in my office before. Why was he starting to care now?
One former colleague and I had some deep talks about this very subject. Robin Roberts, who had left ESPN two years before to cohost Good Morning America, was diagnosed with breast cancer around the same time as I got my diagnosis. She was starting six months of chemo and radiation around the same time that I’d be undergoing chemo. We were there for each other. I remember hearing about her mama’s homespun wisdom long before Robin used her mama’s quote for the title of her terrific book: Everybody’s Got Something.
Robin and I would talk about how those who weren’t in CancerWorld didn’t get it. “Yeah,” I remember Robin saying, “everyone wants to know how you’re doing, and they don’t get that you’ll reach out to the people you want to reach out to.”
The simple truth is that there’s no way you can adequately respond to everyone who asks after you. First of all, there’s the issue of time: If I got back to everyone who called or texted or stopped b
y, I wouldn’t have any time left in my day. More important, though: That all takes energy, man. And it takes an expenditure of energy about something that is already consuming you night and day.
Robin and I used to bond over the dumb things people say to cancer patients. Our favorite was “Oh, you’ll be fine! You’ll beat it!” You can’t believe how many people say that to you. How do you know I’ll be fine? Where’d that medical degree of yours come from? If my oncologist can’t tell me that, how can you? Others tell you about their aunt or cousin who had a similar type of cancer—and only lasted a couple of years. Thanks for sharing.
Then there are the advice-givers. The ones who tell you not to work out, what to eat. There are people who look real closely at my hairline before asking: “Have you lost any hair?” Seriously?
I know people mean well, so I feel guilty talking about them this way—but this is what it’s like from the patient’s point of view. A lot of times, people—again, meaning well—will say, “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.” Ummm … no. I’m not going to let you know if there’s anything you can do. Think of the psychology of that. It’s kinda putting another burden on me, man. Don’t ask me what to do. Just do it. Show up at night and bring some food over. Show up during chemo and just be present. Don’t overstay your welcome.
I’m close friends with my ESPN colleague Sage Steele and her husband, Jonathan. He’s kind of introverted, like me, so at parties we tend to find each other in the corners of crowded rooms. One time, Sage and I were at the National Association of Black Journalists convention. At the hotel bar, a couple of guys were hitting on her.
“Hey, man,” I said. “Back off.”
“What do you care?” one of them said.
“She’s married.”
“I don’t see her husband,” the guy said.
“He’s one of my boys,” I said. “Back off.” Sage seemed to appreciate me jumping in. I’m sure Jonathan appreciated it even more.
Later, after I’d started chemo, I was at the infusion center one day and Sage had said she was going to stop by. But then she texted and said, “I’m sick. Can’t make it.” No biggie. But there I was, sitting in that big ol’ chair, all hooked up, and in walked Jonathan with biscuits. She didn’t text me he was coming and he didn’t ask. My man just showed up with some food. He sat there and we talked sports for a little while. When he left, there were tears in my eyes because it was such a perfect moment. All we needed was one of them awkward man hugs.
Look, not everyone can be as intuitive as Sage and Jonathan. I get that. I know people don’t know what to say, so they just talk to fill the awkward silence and stuff comes out. They don’t mean to say the wrong thing. But, listen, y’all: You don’t have to say anything at all. Just wrap your arms around me and squeeze. A hug speaks volumes. That’s what I do when I meet someone who is also in the fight. I grab on and don’t let go. Or just say, “I’m really sorry you’re going through this.” That’s all, man. It ain’t hard if you keep it simple and real.
• • •
A LOT OF CANCER patients fear chemotherapy. Me, I couldn’t wait to start it because I’ve always physically fought for something. And I wanted to show Taelor and Sydni that their dad wasn’t a passive patient.
My scar from the surgery had healed. So right after New Year’s, I went to the infusion center not far from my condo for my first session. This would be my routine every other Monday for at least the next twenty-four weeks. Four hours of sitting in a cushiony chair while the poison pumped into my body, followed by forty-eight hours of a chemo cocktail drip strapped to my side. Followed—immediately—by a workout at my buddy Brian’s gym. And I mean immediately.
I can’t tell you how important it felt to go from the chemo infusion center to the gym. There were patients at the infusion center who were gaunt and too weak to walk. I wanted to hug them. I wanted to work out for them. It took about fifteen minutes to get to the gym from the infusion center, but I felt like I was traveling a great distance: from the land of the sick to the land of the recovering. I’d work out three or four times a week, but the most important workout was the one right after chemo. It was like I was proving a point: While you kick my butt, cancer, I’m gonna kick yours.
That first day is when, getting on the elliptical, I noticed that name on the chemo drip. The medical name of the medicine is fluorouracil, but they call it 5-FU. That’s what it said, right there: 5-FU. All right, I thought. A sign. FU, cancer.
My return to the gym felt kind of spiritual. I wasn’t really supposed to run since I was still connected to the port that was giving me my medicine. (Going through a port, rather than intravenously, saves the wear and tear on your veins.) I looked down, and my eye caught the logo of the manufacturer of the machine I was on: LifeStyle.
That word jumped out at me: Life. I started to pray, thanking God that I still had it—life. I thought back to the first thought I had when they told me in Pittsburgh: I’m going to die. But I was still here. And here I was, not forty-five minutes out of chemo, and I was in the gym, doing what I do. I started to run. What could be the harm? The disease wasn’t in control. I was.
I skipped rope for a few minutes. Then came two sets of fifty push-ups each and a few rounds of shadowboxing. Rinse and repeat. That was followed by five sets of dumbbell bench presses—about sixty pounds each—and five sets of dumbbell curls. It wasn’t one of my pre-cancer workouts, where I’d be on the treadmill for an hour and then slamming weights, but it was like medicine to me. I didn’t have the girls on Mondays, but I really wanted to see them after chemo, so I’d go over to my ex-wife’s house and crash in the guest bedroom. I wanted Taelor and Sydni to see me coming back from the gym, sweaty and spent, fighting for them.
I joked around with the girls about my new friend, this pack of medicine attached to my body for forty-eight hours. “He’s, like, my buddy,” I said. That’s when we decided to name him: Marvin Fitzpatrick Bartholomew. From then on, every time they saw me after one of my post-chemo workouts, Sydni and Taelor would say hello not just to me but also to Marvin. They didn’t want to be rude and ignore him.
Sydni was fascinated by the port through which “Marvin” got me my medicine. My doctor gave me a duplicate one so that Sydni could take it to school for show-and-tell. She explained to her classmates how I got my medicine, and she told them all about her new friend Marvin.
My workouts were the most important part of my days. I hadn’t done anything since the surgery, and, mentally, I needed to feel strong. I hated looking in the mirror and seeing some skinny dude with no muscle mass looking back. Maybe part of that was simple vanity, but I think it went deeper.
I’d been hardwired as an athlete since I was six years old. I thought that should give me an edge over most people who are diagnosed with cancer. I knew what it was like to work toward a physical goal, and I knew that there’s no such thing as a purely physical act: the mental and physical are deeply connected.
Mentally, I needed to be in that gym. I’d talk smack to cancer like Ali talked to his opponents. A third set of push-ups? Take that, cancer. Twenty full-out sprint pass patterns? Cancer, you ever run up against this? Some kicks and punches into the middle of the heavy bag after the elliptical? I got yer cancer right here!
I needed to do that, not just to show my girls I was fighting for them, but also to show myself I had some control over the situation. ’Cause cancer wants to take control from you. You’ve got to very purposefully stand your ground. That’s what going to the gym is to me. I decide, cancer. That’s what going to work is. I decide, cancer. That’s what traveling all over the country and abroad is. I decide, cancer.
I’ve learned as a single parent that you can’t be a control freak. Man, I got teenage daughters—I’ve accepted not having control. I’d pick Sydni up from school at four o’clock, and her best friend, Emma, would be with her. “Dad, can Emma come over?” I love Emma. Of course, they’d already be in the backseat by the time she asked.
“Sure,” I’d say. “Of course she can.” I might have had plans. But there’s no such thing as planning when it comes to the life of a teenage girl. Unless Sydni had done something wrong or disrespectful, I’d never say no to her having a friend over: It’s her home, too. I’d just smile and admit to myself, I’m not really running this. It’s kind of cool. It makes every day an adventure: When you have teenage girls, you’re just waiting to see what happens.
But there are some things you have to fight for control over. Remember how I used to stand over my sleeping girls late at night and vow to protect them? Cancer came into my life as a threat to them. I couldn’t let it get the upper hand. Funny, as hard as I thought the fight was going to be, in subsequent years I’d learn that it’s even harder. Because cancer is one formidable opponent. But so am I.
When people would hear of my post-chemo workout regimen, they’d get wide-eyed and kind of marvel at it. It’s nothing to admire, folks. It’s not some act of bravery. I was at the gym because I needed to be. Because I was terrified. Every minute of every day I was afraid I was going to die. Not that moment, but soon—and sooner than I’d ever thought.
You’ve heard the phrase Listen to your body? Well, during and after chemo, there were many times when I was fatigued. I wasn’t nauseated so much as I just had a general blech feeling, a malaise. The worst feeling came three or four days after the chemo: My body felt depleted. My body seemed to be telling me to skip the gym and go home and get in bed.
I told that part of me to shut the hell up. I wasn’t about to be fooled: That was the cancer talking. I’d tell myself that once I was on the elliptical, I’d start to rally. Once I shadowboxed some left-right-left combinations, the old adrenaline would kick in. Afterward, I’d crash. I wouldn’t be bone-crushingly tired, but I’d be spent. If I wasn’t over at Kim’s to be with the girls, I’d lie on the floor in the living room at the condo while nibbling on a bland dinner and watching TV.