by Craig Sager
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Table of Contents
About the Authors
Copyright Page
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To my Stacy and my children Kacy, Craig, Krista, Riley, and Ryan. You have supported me, and I will fight to be there as long as I can to support you.
FOREWORD BY CHARLES BARKLEY
I have traveled the world, meeting thousands of people of all colors, creeds, and nationalities, some basketball fans, some not. I have sat with presidents and with Hall of Famers, played alongside the greatest in the game, and watched the next generation. I thought that I had lived life to the fullest. But then I got to know Craig.
His passion for basketball and for sports in general is unmatched. The guy just loves being at sporting events. Listen, if a guy was his school’s mascot, you have to believe he has an undying passion for sports.
It was December 9, 1999, and I was home. After playing eight seasons with the Philadelphia 76ers and four with the Phoenix Suns, I was returning to Philly as a member of the Houston Rockets to play my last game as a professional in the city that adopted me out of college in 1984. I had already announced prior to the season that this would be my last, and the 76ers front office invited my mother and grandmother to be there for my final game, complete with a pregame ceremony and recognition of my time in a Philadelphia uniform. At thirty-six, my physical health was simply not where it used to be, and my contributions on the court with the Rockets were diminishing.
It was late in the first quarter when the Sixers’ Tyrone Hill went up for a shot and all three-hundred-plus pounds of me rose off the floor to try to block the shot attempt. I didn’t get the ball, came crashing down onto the hard court, and ruptured the tendon in my left knee. This was how my career was going to end—being helped off the court in pain. As I was being wheeled off on a stretcher back to the locker room, a familiar face emerged next to me: Craig Sager.
The first time I met Craig was in the early 1980s, when I was playing basketball at Auburn University and Craig came down with a CNN crew before a big home game against the top-ranked UNLV Runnin’ Rebels. CNN, like Craig, was still emerging on the national scene, but hey, it was national. Flash-forward a few years to when I was playing for the 76ers in the National Basketball Association. I honestly cannot recall the first time he interviewed me after a game, but I can tell you how I felt: I have arrived. You see, Craig has been such a big part of the NBA that being interviewed by him meant that you were somebody. I remember I had the same feeling when Dick Vitale first interviewed me while I was at Auburn.
So Craig and I had a history when he approached me that night in Philadelphia as I lay writhing in pain. Turner was not broadcasting the game, but Craig was on-site to report on my homecoming.
“How are you feeling, Charles?”
“What do you think you injured?”
“Do you believe you have played your last game?”
The relentless reporter in him came first. Obviously, I couldn’t know the answer to most of his questions. I couldn’t even speak; I was in so much pain.
But then he shared something with me.
“Here is David Levy’s phone number. He runs Turner. He has a job for you.”
As it turns out, David had been watching the game, and as soon as he saw me go down with an injury, he called Craig and told him to have me call him.
It was an odd time for Craig to pass along the number, but as fate would have it, it changed my life. I had been in discussions with NBC Sports to join their broadcasting team after the season, but I did call David Levy, and the rest is history. Craig Sager impacted my life. But it would be another fifteen years before he changed my life.
In the years since our first meeting, Craig has become much more than a colleague; he’s been a friend. A lifetime of memories has been built: the 1992 and 1996 Olympics; a Nike trip to Japan with other NBA stars; a visit to his son Craig’s junior high school class (though when he picked me up in his Corvette on that rainy day, he had to put the top down for me to fit); and a threat from his mother. Coral and Al Sager lived in the Atlanta area, near the Turner studios. Craig decided to bring me to their house for a visit one evening and the conversation turned to his colorful wardrobe, which I thought he needed to tone down. His father agreed with me.
“Listen, Charles Barkley, you don’t come into my house and talk about my son’s clothing,” Coral threatened me. I couldn’t tell if she was serious or joking.
When our good friend and colleague Ernie Johnson was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2003 before missing work for treatment in 2006, it was a punch in the gut. I’d never had anyone close to me suffer from cancer. Fortunately for E.J., they caught the disease early and he responded well to treatments.
So when I learned in April 2014 that Craig had leukemia, it was yet another gut punch, but until I fully understood the seriousness of his condition, I assumed that he would be right back on the air, just like Ernie. I recall visiting him in the hospital in Atlanta shortly after his diagnosis. I was in scrubs head to toe, mask over my mouth to prevent any small germs from infecting Craig. I didn’t know what to expect when I walked in. You never know how someone will react to a terminal illness. But while I was there, Craig cheered me up. He made me laugh. He made me feel like he wasn’t even sick.
The positive attitude with which he approached life and his work was still there. Even as his battle has grown tougher over the past two years, Craig has always been on the bright side, never wondering if he won’t make it, but rather wondering how fast he can make it back.
Perhaps the best compliment that you can give a person is to tell them that they make you a better one. And that is true of Craig Sager. He motivates and inspires me to be a better man. He fights with grace and courage and humor, and never once have I heard him complain, despite some of the deep valleys he has fallen into. It has changed me in ways I couldn’t have imagined. I think I am tough, but I am not Sager Strong. I don’t complain as much after a visit with Craig. I marvel at how he can have such an awful disease but act as if every day is the best day of his life.
Craig has a huge advantage in his fight in that Stacy is his wife. I admire how she has been a true caretaker for more than two years while also raising two incredible children. Having a support system is critical for anyone facing adversity, and Craig has the best in Stacy, Riley, Ryan, Kacy, Craig, and Krista. His battle is his family’s battle. Going through a battle with cancer is not easy, and perhaps even more difficult when you are a public figure. How is Craig doing? What is the latest on Craig? I read online today that he is back in the hospital; I am so sorry. When will Craig be back? Well-intentioned family, friends, and strangers all want answers in the grocery store, at the school drop-off, at a tennis match, in the mall, and even while walking the halls of a hospital.
I have been blessed with a lot of things in my life—family, fame, wealth, and the ability to do what I want when I want. Material things come and go, but true friendship lasts forever. I hope that Craig and
I grow old together, and I hope that others will be as inspired by his story as I have been by his life.
C.B.
August 2016
INTRODUCTION
Good things do come from having cancer. It is a little strange to read that line out loud, but it was actually easy to write, because it’s true. At least for me. Since being diagnosed with leukemia in April 2014, my outlook on life has been inversely proportional to the effect my disease has had on my body. I have been able to touch people in ways I never thought possible. I have formed friendships with random strangers around the country who are battling their own enemy. I have savored every ounce of sunshine, of sea breeze, of buffalo shrimp, of private moments with my bride and children. The cancer has reinforced my passion for my life’s work and my desire to continue doing it.
Most of all, having cancer has made me more determined than I have ever been. I will beat the odds and I will beat leukemia and I sure as hell won’t let it stop me from living my life. I have always been a public figure because of my work in sports television and, yes, because of my fancy jackets. When I was diagnosed two years ago, I made the decision that I was not going to hide from the cancer or attempt to shield others from the news. I have lived my life out loud for decades and I was not going to change now.
I am as sunny in my outlook as my fanciful suits are bright and, as you will read, I have always been optimistic and fearless. But make no mistake: this battle has not been easy, and there have been some very dark days. No one wants to see me complain, see me in my worst moments, so I make sure I summon the strength to be positive when others are around.
When I was first approached about the idea of a book, I hesitated, for though I’m kind of like the Forrest Gump of the sporting world, like Forrest, I never intended to be the face of anything. In fact, I’ve always liked my role because I could be there without being the guy. Biographies are for heroes and famous people, I thought. But as strangers approached me on the street for photos, as patients sought counsel in the hallways of MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, and as handwritten letters overwhelmed my mailbox daily, I agreed that if telling my story helps just a few folks looking for some meaning in this raw deal we call cancer, it would be worth it. Despite my determination to win the battle, I don’t know what is in store for me long-term, but I want people to know that even if they’re reading this after I’m gone, I never quit and neither should they.
What follows are the collected moments that have filled the journey of my life and my battle of the past two years, and, most important, reflections that were perhaps compelled by the situation in which I’ve found myself. I don’t have the answers, or a recipe for how to beat cancer or, more simply, how to live your life. All I can do is share my story.
I often think about the famous movie The Pride of the Yankees. It has always been one of my go-tos for inspiration. During the final scene, where Gary Cooper delivers Lou Gehrig’s famous farewell speech, I always find myself leaning in …
People all say that I’ve had a bad break. But today … today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.
The Iron Horse and I have something in common. What we might’ve imagined a terminal diagnosis would do to our spirits, it summoned quite the opposite: the greatest appreciation for life imaginable.
Outside of the main entrance of MD Anderson Cancer Center sits a nondenominational chapel for families and patients, and resting in front of the chapel is a beautiful sculpture with an engraving of part of a Victor Hugo poem:
Be like the bird who
Halting in his flight
On limb too slight
Feels it give way beneath him
Yet sings
Knowing he hath wings
I am the bird and I will keep singing until I can’t sing any longer—and then I will sing some more.
PART I
THE MAKING OF ME
1
“LET’S PLAY TWO”
I was as nervous as I’d ever been. I’ve jumped out of airplanes, swum with sharks, climbed the Great Wall of China, run with the bulls in Pamplona, been arrested—a few times—and recently been told I have months to live. But as I stood in the dugout waiting to be introduced, I could actually feel my heart beating through my blue dress shirt underneath my all-white linen suit. My fingertips were so clammy, they left sweat marks on the baseballs I used for my warm-up pitches under the stands, and I was rocking back and forth on my feet when Cubs manager Joe Maddon, who was to present me with a personalized Cubbies jersey prior to my pitch, walked up to me and lightened the mood with a little banter. As I looked around at the forty thousand Cubs fans in sold-out Wrigley Field on that June evening in 2016, I realized this baseball team, this place, was the touchstone by which I could measure my whole life.
Almost all of my childhood birthdays were spent here, and in the weeks leading up, classmates would try to curry favor with me—bribing me with baseball cards and their lunch snacks—knowing that an invitation to Wrigley hung in the balance. I always got autographs before games from our Cubs heroes, though my father would make me share my prized signatures with my friends who were a bit more reserved—which angered me. One pregame, I remember getting Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, Tony Taylor, and Don Zimmer autographs on their baseball cards. Dad allowed me to keep Banks and Williams but made me give Taylor and Zimmer to my friends who were in tears at their failure to match my aggressiveness.
My bedroom in Batavia, Illinois, about fifty miles from Wrigley, was awash in Cubs paraphernalia—Cubs sheets, Cubs pillowcase, Cubs backpack. I even drew the Cubs logo on all of my school folders and binders, just in case a classmate was unsure of my loyalties.
In my father’s old briefcase, a gold-colored aluminum box with two flaps, I kept my most prized possessions as a child—baseball cards. The Topps sets came out every spring, and Schielke’s Grocery on Main Street sold the cards in packages of twenty, along with a piece of pink bubblegum, for just a nickel. My Aunt Lil kept me well stocked with a pack in her weekly grocery shopping. Opening a pack was like Christmas morning. The scent of a pink stick of bubblegum was the aroma of a forthcoming afternoon of blowing bubbles. But more important, it was the concealment of what was stacked below. A Hank Aaron, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, or, better yet, a beloved Cub: a George Altman, an Al Spangler, a Bob Will, or—a winning lottery ticket—an Ernie Banks, a Ferguson Jenkins, or a Billy Williams.
I devoured the cards, memorizing and reciting the batting statistics, hometown, and height and weight of each player. I looked for deals with my friends, trying to complete a team set and, of course, was always open to a trade that involved a Cubbie.
When we weren’t brokering baseball card deals, we were on the sandlot next to Peterson’s Foundry, which churned out hot metal every afternoon. The lot was really just dirt with a few patches of dead grass, but it was big enough for us to live out our dreams on. We would play four-on-four games of baseball, with actual bases thirty feet apart and intricate rules for what counted as a double or a triple. We could stay out all day in the summer, just like my Cubbies would.
Once we were eight years old and eligible to play Little League, I was crushed when I was drafted by the Batavia Body Company White Sox and not the Batavia Central Pattern Works Cubs. The Little League field was right by the Fox River, and you could often find me at third base in the springs and summers, where I had more talent fielding ground balls than making contact as a hitter. In fact, taking pitched balls to the head and upper torso seemed to increase my on-base percentage.
In high school, my friends and I took the train from Geneva Station, the depot closest to Batavia, into Chicago for games, my parents even giving me their blessing to play hooky from school once in a while to catch a Cubs matinee—all Cubs home games back then were afternoon games. I nearly always got away with it. Nearly. One time, my high school coach caught me on TV as I was catching a foul ball. (Though now that I think about it, why was Coach Tom McMahon watchi
ng the game during school hours?)
My decision to attend Northwestern University in Evanston, near Chicago, instead of accepting an appointment to West Point, was tipped by the fact that I wanted to be able to escape on the “L” train to Wrigley at will. I perfected my plan by choosing morning classes just in case I heard the call of the ivy, which I often did.
At the end of the Cubs’ 1972 season, my classmate Dan DeWitt (whom we called “Dimmer”) and I hopped on the train to catch the Cubbies’ season finale. We scored tickets on the third-base side, right behind the field tarp just beyond the dugout. I had it in my mind that at some point during the game, I was going to run onto the field, to experience—if only for a fleeting moment—the Wrigley grass under my feet. As soon as the Cubs closed things out in the top of the ninth inning, I blurted out, “Let’s go!”
Without waiting to see if Dimmer was on board, I sprinted across the third-base line and onto the infield as bewildered Cubs players stood by, I like to think, amused. I touched second base and then ran toward first, by now being hotly pursued by Chicago police officers. I made it to first base and kept running, not toward home but rather toward the stands. I lunged over the fence on the first-base line as thousands of fans stood and cheered. As I raced up the bleacher steps, I noticed Dimmer right behind me. We ran down the ramp at Sheffield Avenue and Addison Street, with the officers still some thirty yards behind us. I thought we would make it. What I didn’t know was that the officers had radioed ahead for security to close down the exit gates, and Dimmer and I were quickly in custody, handcuffed together. They walked us back up the ramp, down the stands, and, unbelievably, across the field toward the holding cells.
“We get to do this twice!” I said to Dimmer with a smile.
What was my obsession with the Chicago Cubs? Was it the white uniforms with thin blue pinstripes that brought me in? Was it the afternoon games at the friendly confines of Wrigley, with the ivy, the smell of beer, and the drama of sport? Or maybe it was the joy of watching grown men play a kids’ game with a smile? No, my love affair with the Cubs starts and ends with Ernest “Ernie” Banks.