After Shopping Black Friday, Spend the Evening Supporting Jeff and Danielle Jones' Effort to Raise Prostate Cancer Awareness
November 21, 2018
ODU basketball coach Jeff Jones is battling an advanced form of prostate cancer.
By Harry Minium
Old Dominion University basketball coach Jeff Jones and I are the members of the same club, one that no man wants to join.
We both have been treated for prostate cancer and believe me, I was a lot more fortunate than Jeff. I have my doctor, Joseph Vaccarella, to thank for that. I was in my late 50s when he ordered blood work to test my Prostate-Specific Antigen. It may have saved my life.
More on that later. Here's what I'm hoping all of you will do: Show up Friday night when ODU hosts the University of Northern Iowa at the Ted Constant Center.
I know it's Black Friday, the most intense Christmas shopping day of the year. Many of you be tuckered out, especially a day after ingesting Thanksgiving turkey and all the fixings.
But by showing up Friday, you will show that you support Jeff's campaign to increase awareness of the disease.
Jones has a serious case of prostate cancer. But rather than shake his angry hand at the sky and say "why me?", he and his wife, Danielle, began a campaign to help others with cancer.
In September, in her role as a volunteer for the American Cancer Society's Coaches vs. Cancer program, Danielle, and Jeff launched a fundraising campaign for ACS's Hope Lodge Network, which benefits patients who require lodging for treatment.
It began the day Jones announced in a story at odusports.com that his prostate cancer had returned.
She kicked things off with a donation of $13,280, the amount Jones paid for a scan his insurance declined to pay for. Her original goal was $25,000, one-fourth of the entire goal of the Coaches Vs. Cancer campaign.
To date her fund has raised nearly $70,000 (to donate to the fund, click here.)
ODU officials are calling Friday's game Prostate Cancer Awareness Night. As a part of that effort, the Monarchs are wearing throwback, Carolina-blue jerseys - the kind they wore when Paul Webb and Sonny Allen coached.
Light blue is the prostate cancer awareness color.The first 1,000 fans will receive free light-blue T-shirts, and everyone is being urged to wear light blue.
Furthermore, $2 from each ticket will go to help others fight cancer.
Like I said, I was lucky. My prostate cancer was diagnosed seven years ago. After years of "active surveillance," I finally needed treatment beginning in mid-2017. After more than four months of being on female hormones (did I really say I was lucky?), I then had eight weeks of radiation treatment.
The side effects weren't pleasant. Though they've gotten better, they will affect me the rest of my life.
Cancer sucks, right? So does cancer treatment.
But it sure beats the alternative. My latest tests showed there is no more cancer. At least for now.
Jones learned he had cancer only because he underwent a physical to get life insurance in 2015. He wasn't tested early, and that's something he's passionately trying to spread the word about.
His cancer that was so advanced he was not a candidate for radiation treatment alone. He needed surgery, then was told he needed radiation treatment, too.
Jeff and I went to the same radiologist, Dr. Mark Shaves, at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. Shaves has a reputation as the one of the best radiologists in Virginia.
Jones' cancer turned out to be aggressive, and more tests found that in spite of surgery and radiation, the cancer had spread.
It is being controlled with medications, but there is no cure.
At least not yet.
Jones is the same energetic guy he always was. He's working perhaps harder than I've ever seen him - and I covered him both as a player and coach at the University of Virginia.
But I've been in his shoes, and he's fighting side effects that aren't easy to deal with.
I admire him so much for how he's handled things. He's spoken at American Cancer Society meetings in Washington, to local groups and has made an awesome video that you will see right after the first half.
Even if you stop reading here, watch the video. It tells you all you need to know.
Every ODU head coach, athletic director Wood Selig and yours truly participated. "We're all behind you," Selig said, to end the video.
And we are, Jeff.
Jones didn't have to tell anyone that his cancer spread. That's his personal business. But even if by speaking out he saves one life, it's worth it, he says.
"It's such a personal, intimate disease, that few men speak about it," Jones says on the video. "Prostate cancer, however, is the second-leading cause of cancer death among American men.
"My wife Danee and I want to raise awareness because by the time I got treatment, my cancer had already spread. We want to raise money for those who don't have the financial resources to fight cancer alone. There's nothing more frustrating than learning that people don't have access to necessary treatments, even when they have insurance, because of the cost."
If you're 50 or older, please get tested. Get second opinions and do your homework.
My urologist urged that I have surgery. But I did a lot of research and spoke with many prostate cancer survivors. For me, radiation seemed a better option.
Even if you're not an ODU fan, don't care about basketball or are tired from too much turkey and shopping, come to the game Friday.
Show Jeff you support him and his effort to raise cancer awareness.
Click this link for a longer version of this story on odusports.com.
