It feels like I've been asked 100 million times over why I'm writing this book on South Carolina baseball, on the heels of my last book, Hawaii Football: A Story of Faith, Hope and Redemption (www.myhawaiifootball.com).

 

The answer is simple: When you meet someone like great head coach Ray Tanner, the best baseball coach in NCAA history, who has dedicated his life to his trade, it's easy to take a year or two out of your life to make sure the rest of the world knows about it, and to spread their gospel to people who need it; to build giant Southeastern Conference stadiums for college baseball that have never before been accomplished; to build $350,000 stadiums for handicapped children that would never have one; to leave a legacy of winning that no one will ever top.

 

Who wouldn't want to be part of this?

 

Motivating me, however, is a chance to insert this man into the lives of others and change lives. So many boys have never had a head coach. So many boys don't know what it means to get off their ass and play. So many kids today -- in an era of I-Pods, emails, Google and cellphones -- don't understand that you don't pass on such opportunities.

 

"Listen," Coach Tanner told me once, "I've never taken this uniform off.  This is what I do. And don't hoo-doo me. I'll come get you." Then he smiles, and chuckles, and then pulls out his managerial card, for he knows that pitching and defense wins ballgames, and that he will take your best hitter hot, low, inside,across his knees, and dare you to do something about it.

 

Apparently, that's how you win 1,000 games.

 

I'm a married father of four. What you will read herein is an example -- you will say it's got nothing to do with baseball, but, as you read, we are all a part of the patchwork quilt of life.

 

This is proof that when you touch lives, you become a part of that fabric.

 

Coach Ray Tanner has what we all want -- need -- is a part of that magic.

 

Enjoy these words from a few years ago about how Curt Pesmen, my old editor from SPORT Magazine, beat cancer, and compare it to your own issues.

 

 

“You have colon cancer.” 

The doctor’s words shuddered through Curtis Pesmen like a rogue wave engulfing an unsuspecting boat on a placid sea. A best-selling author many times over whose work has touched the lives of millions,

Curt suddenly felt alone.

Thus began a long journey into hell from which he would fortunately emerge months later, singed, but alive.

Though no one ever truly recovers from the shock of hearing those words, Curt did something too few people do: He took matters into his own hands, attacking the disease with the same scholarly skills that had served him brilliantly throughout his lifelong journalism career: He hit the books. Research, he suddenly realized, might be the difference in life, or death.

Curt Pesmen was my editor at SPORT magazine.

His focus on due diligence and research, and the profound results they would engineer in his bout with cancer, came as no surprise to me. The schooling I received from Curt had always centered on the “grunt work” of journalism: Research, research, research.

Little did he realize that decades later, those very skills would be called upon with life-threatening ramifications when he was diagnosed with colon cancer at age 43.

Born and raised in the Midwest, Curt graduated college and came to New York City at age 20 to start his journalism career. I barreled into Curt’s life as a talented, but very young, bullheaded, brash, obnoxious writer in the mid-80s.

The very opposite of me at that time (and who I would later become), Curt is humble, conservative, and consistent. “Writers teach, and by teaching, we touch lives,” he would say. Pointing at a stack of books, he would smile and say,

“The answers are all in there – the trick is to get in there and find them.” I’ll never forget witnessing first-hand the mountain of work that went into one of his best selling books, How a Man Ages.

Until I met Curt, I thought writers just sat down and wrote. Curt explained that writers are far more than just storytellers; they are enablers, questioners, encouragers, organizers, nurturers, advocates, and supporters – even theorists.

“Keep researching, keep asking questions,” he said. “Then, when you’re done, ask more questions.”

Like a surgeon, Curt – with a disarming giggle and sly smile – cut my editorial work into ribbons. His title said “editor,” but Curt was really a teacher at heart.

He loved his job, and he was simply the very best. I made his life difficult, yet Curt was determined to structure the pace of my instruction.

He frequently called when he didn’t have to, just to check on my progress.

For a writer or author, a finished manuscript is like giving birth; it takes a special person to convince you that the baby is flawed. Curt could do that in such a way that you appreciated it. Pesmen encouraged exploration and investigation; he splashed perspective into my often-shallow early drafts.

His prodding, thought-provoking questions opened my mind to ideals I would have never reached on my own. He was often the difference in a good story, and a great one. I learned to anticipate his questions, which dramatically improved my reasoning.

On a personal basis, when I would get overwhelmed in the Big Apple, Curt was a big brother:

Reassuring, methodical, affable. On several trips to New York, I would crash on his sofa; we’d spend hours talking about the throes of life.

I was a naive infidel at the time – the words “loose cannon” are an understatement. In one of the more stupid moves of my career, I once rented a stretch limo for the ride to Curt’s upper West Side apartment. As I stepped from my plush ride, Curt’s high-rise window suddenly opened, and he began pelting me with dirty socks.

“Are you out of your mind?” he yelled down to the street.

Later that night, Curt tattooed my psyche with my own character flaws. His tone was gentle, his critique was not; the words chipped away like velvet hammers. “You are amazingly gifted,” he prophesied, “but you must learn to control yourself, control your ego, and focus on your skills. You are not the story. You are the messenger.”

His research tutorials served me well several years later, when the New York Newspaper Guild awarded me – and my co-author David Whitford, now a writer with Fortune Magazine  -- the coveted Page One Award for investigative journalism.

To this day in our corporation, I do all of my own research; I do not delegate that task to anyone on my team. In doing so, I develop my own passion and belief system for the projects we undertake.

As for Curt, his own writing accomplishments are now legendary. His career credits include GQ, Esquire, US, Outside, SPORT, Men's Journal, Men's Health, Men's Fitness, Redbook, Ladies' Home Journal, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, SELF, Seventeen and Travel & Leisure/Golf. His four books have led to appearances on Oprah, NBC Today Show, NBC News, CNN Daybreak, CNBC, Sonja Live and National Public Radio.

It seems like an almost evil irony that most of Curt’s professional career has been spent writing about health and aging issues.

His official websites can be easily found online.

Yet going back a few decades, how surreal it must have been for Curt to learn of his illness after a routine turning-40 checkup.

“My 15 years of health reporting and research really paid off,” he said, via telephone from his home in Boulder, Colorado. “I really got into the research of what was wrong with me, and we put together an A-team of doctors to treat me. I left my home here to be treated at the University of San Francisco, because that’s where I learned I had the greatest opportunity to live.”

Curt’s account should be mandatory reading for every person who has ever taken something or somebody for granted. His journal entries are humbling, raw, and overwhelming; It’s as gritty as it gets (be warned: When I finished, I literally called everyone I loved and kissed everybody in my house).

Through his own horrible ordeal, Curt vicariously has given millions of readers a new slant on the precious moments of life. Doing laps around the lake near his Boulder home is slow, tedious work.

“I’m not on the other side yet,” he said. “I still have six more weeks of chemo.”

Curt strongly suggests that everyone take a page from his textbook and do a little health research on themselves, regardless of how “healthy” you think you are. “I was misdiagnosed the first time,” he says.

During his ordeal, he learned that a Los Angeles doctor had misdiagnosed a friend of his wife with post-childbirth hemorrhoids.

After reading Curt’s accounts, she went for a second opinion, where doctors found a tumor in her colon. Fortunately, it was treatable. She is alive today.

“Don’t assume that anything you hear is the absolute truth,” he said. “Take it on yourself to do the research. Never give up. As a surgeon once told me, “cancer is a word, not a sentence.’”

We are all blessed, Curt, to have you alive.

Blessed, indeed.