Kansas City Chiefs legend Curley Culp took to Twitter on Tuesday to announce to his followers that he has been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer.
“To my followers, family and friends I have stage 4 pancreatic cancer,” Culp wrote. “Do donate to your local cancer organizations so this dreaded disease is eradicated. Love life, family and friends. Pray to God for all physical and spiritual healing. Love, Curley Culp HOF#13.”
Culp played 14 seasons in the NFL, spending the majority of his time with the Chiefs, but was traded to the Houston Oilers in 1975. He’d spent another seven years with Houston before spending a brief period with the Detroit Lions at the end of his career.
To my followers, family and friends I have stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Do donate to your local cancer organizations so this dreaded disease is eradicated. Love life, family and friends. 🙏 pray to God for all physical and spiritual healing. Love, Curley Culp HOF#13.
A national champion as a heavyweight wrestler at Arizona State, Culp was traded to the Chiefs from their AFC West rival Broncos after he was selected in the second round of the 1968 draft. Denver had attempted to switch him to offensive guard and after the failed conversion they sent him to Kansas City during training camp.
Culp would quickly establish himself as one of the best interior defensive linemen in the league, earning six Pro Bowls and five All-Pro selections during his career. He spent seven of those years in Kansas City, appearing in 82 regular-season games and five postseason games. He was a vital part of the defense that would hold the Vikings to seven points in Super Bowl IV, notching four total tackles during the game.
In March of 2008, Culp became the 38th player, coach or contributor to join the Chiefs’ Ring of Honor. Culp was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2013.
Dick Vitale’s love for Notre Dame isn’t something the legendary college basketball commentator shies away from. He wears his love for the Fighting Irish and University on his sleeve, has had several family members attend Notre Dame, and spends a good amount of his free time soaking up football Saturday’s on campus.
Vitale recently announced he’s again battling cancer, the second time he’s done so in just months. The announcement came just a couple of weeks after Vitale was in South Bend for the Notre Dame-Cincinnati game.
On Friday, Notre Dame quarterback Jack Coan had a message for Vitale that made the man that usually has so much to say, practically speechless.
Dick Vitale is as big of supporter of college basketball as you’ll ever find. His delivery on ESPN broadcasts might not be for everyone but you can’t argue against his love for the sport that he’s shared with audiences for over 40 years.
For the second time in just a few months, I’ve been diagnosed with a form of cancer. As a result of some symptoms I’ve had in recent weeks, I’ve been undergoing tests and doctors have now confirmed it’s lymphoma.
Vitale goes onto describe what his doctors have given him as the game plan for his treatment which includes steroids and six months of chemotherapy. The good news is that Vitale’s medical experts tell him there is a 90-percent cure rate with this form.
Vitale also stated that his plan is to continue working as much as possible during treatment.
While Gary Player won tournaments around the world, his wife of 64 years, Vivienne, managed the family at home.
Vivienne Player, wife of Hall of Fame golfer Gary Player, died Wednesday after a battle with pancreatic cancer. The couple’s 64-year marriage produced six children, 22 grandchildren and two great grandchildren.
Vivienne was diagnosed with cancer in June of 2020.
“Your whole life has got to be a honeymoon if you want it to be successful,” Gary recently told Golfweek contributor Averee Dovsek on her podcast, Why You Suck at Golf!, in mentioning Vivienne’s cancer battle. “Work at it. Love is the greatest word in the world.”
Gary, now 85, first proposed to Vivienne when he was 15 years old, and they married in 1957 in their native South Africa. Gary’s globe-trotting career went on to produce nine major championship titles among his 167 international victories, with 24 PGA Tour wins. Gary has spoke often about how his family sometimes traveled with children, and how Vivienne ran the family while he was away.
International team captain Gary Player talks with his wife, Viviene, as they watch foursomes matches at the 2005 Presidents Cup at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Virginia. (Jamie Squire/Getty Images)
“She is the best wife that any man could ever wish for,” he told Tennis World in 2020 after her diagnosis. “You know, no other woman would have stayed with me. I spent more time on airplanes than anyone in this planet. And she stayed home with the kids.”
Gary and Vivienne founded the Player Foundation and the Gary Player Invitational series tournaments, which has raised tens of millions of dollars to provide educational opportunities for underprivileged children.
“With the travel my profession and wins have afforded my wife Vivienne and I, we have seen the poverty and enormous needs around the world,” Gary said on the foundation website. “We have gained great satisfaction from giving something back to the world in moments of success.”
Vivienne played golf and once recorded two holes-in-one in one round in Johannesburg.
Tributes poured in on social media, including the following.
Tony Jacklin
Astrid and I send you @garyplayer and the family our deepest condolences on the loss of Vivienne who was a truly wonderful lady. We’ll miss knowing she’s no longer there RIP
Everyone at The R&A sends their deepest condolences to Gary Player and his family, following the sad news of Vivienne's passing. pic.twitter.com/lmcu17tVla
It is with a heavy heart that we learned that one of golf's biggest patrons, Vivienne Player, lost her long & brave battle with cancer. Our sincere condolences goes out to her husband Gary, their children and grandchildren, family and friends. pic.twitter.com/fOpkbLCL9Y
Like many calls to action over illness or disease, Dan Mechem’s decision to confront skin cancer came from a personal story.
Like many calls to action over illness or disease, Dan Mechem’s decision to confront skin cancer came from a personal story. In Mechem’s case, it was the death of a close friend.
“He had never seen a dermatologist,” Mechem said. “He was completely blindsided. He said to me about a week before he died that he felt like he didn’t have to die.”
In Mechem’s research about skin cancer after the death of his friend, he was disappointed in what was offered and what was being done about what he calls the fastest growing cancer in the country. So along with friend Randy Wyatt, who spent more than 40 years as a health care executive, most recently at a for-profit skin cancer company, Mechem decided to start his own non-profit for skin cancer called SknVue.
With a desire to take the message global, he took some advice from his father, former LPGA commissioner Charles Mechem.
“He said why not focus on golf. Golf is an outdoor sport, and it is certainly global,” said Mechem, a California businessman and financial advisor.
LPGA Hall of Famer Nancy Lopez is part of the board of the new SknVue non-profit focusing on skin cancer education.
The result surprised Mechem, who said not only did players such as Nancy Lopez, Juli Inkster, Dottie Pepper, Andy North and others love the idea of fighting skin cancer, they jumped at a chance to be on the board of directors of SknVue.
“A lot of people don’t know that skin cancer is the world’s most common cancer, and that it is actually the most preventable,” said North, a two-time U.S. Open champion, in the release announcing the formation of the Oceanside-based non-profit. “Skin cancer, you are on notice. We are coming after you with a vengeance to save lives.”
Working to spread the message
While the non-profit status of SknVue remains pending – the company has come together in the last four months – Mechem said he, Wyatt and others at SknVue are making plans to push the message of skin cancer and its prevention out to the public. To be called Skn In the Game, the global outreach campaign will focus its efforts on the golf community worldwide.
The numbers for skin cancer can be frightening, but also encouraging for the public, Mechem said. Mechem said one in five people have some form of skin cancer before they are 70 years old. But he added 80 percent of people have never seen a dermatologist, the first step in identifying and treating skin cancer. With early detection, skin cancer has a 99 percent survival rate for five years.
One focus for Mechem and Wyatt will be getting more and more people in golf interested in the non-profit.
“We want a board coalition of people who are in golf,” Mechem said. “We will approach players, Golf Channel, PING, anyone who is in golf, to become part of our effort.”
One of those partnerships will be with the LPGA and its developmental tour, the Symetra Tour, to allow those organizations to reach out to their fans with the skin cancer message. Other plans include partnering with a Canadian health care firm, MetaOptima. Mechem said more details of that partnership will come in the next month or so and will be about opportunities for people to take their skin care health into their own hands initially.
Mechem, who admits Wyatt is the partner with the science background in the non-profit, said the message for people can be as simple as understanding what does and doesn’t work in combating skin cancer. Exposure to the sun even on a cloudy day can cause issues, and Mechem is a strong advocate for no one using tanning beds.
“On the sunscreen side, sometimes people just have the wrong product,” Mechem said. “There are products out there that are actually not good for you. That’s one of the things we want to do before we get with the LPGA and the Symetra, find out who has the right products, products that we want to be involved with.”
More information can be found online at www.sknvue.org or SkinVue pages on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn, or Dan Mechem, 888-367-5956, for partnership contacts.
Larry Bohannan is The Desert Sun golf writer. He can be reached at (760) 778-4633 or larry.bohannan@desertsun.com. Follow him on Facebook or on Twitter at @Larry_Bohannan.
Missy Farr-Kaye is battling cancer a third time. She expects treatment to end just before Arizona State hosts the NCAA Championships in May.
Missy Farr-Kaye stood in the media room four years ago after the NCAA Women’s Championship and pointed toward the gray T-shirt she’d put on over her uniform to celebrate Arizona State’s latest national title.
“I’m a scar roadmap,” she said, referring to the 15 surgeries, radiation and chemotherapy she’d endured as a two-time breast cancer survivor.
Farr-Kaye’s sister, Heather, died of breast cancer at age 28, and Missy was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 30 and again at age 40. Last November, at age 53, she was diagnosed with colon cancer. Her dad battled colon cancer too.
Just before Thanksgiving, Farr-Kaye’s three sons dropped her at the hospital door for surgery – to remove the mass and her appendix – and picked her up three days later. COVID-19 kept her from having any visitors. That was hard, she said, but her nurses were angels.
“It looks like I’m going to keep my hair,” said Farr-Kaye, who was at home, hooked up to an IV when she answered the phone.
Farr-Kaye began chemotherapy on Dec. 28 and will be on a 14-day cycle. Right now it’s looking like one week at home, and one week at work. The treatments are scheduled to end in mid-April, just in time for the NCAA postseason. She’s battling through the side effects of chemo, including neuropathy and nausea, with the help of Netflix and sports.
Doctors caught the cancer early and believe she will be cancer-free following treatment. Farr-Kaye teared up on the phone when talking about her sons, who range in age from 17 to 27.
“That look of fear in your child’s eyes, even when they’re not children anymore,” she said, “is tough to take.”
Farr-Kaye will rely heavily on her old teammate at ASU, associate head coach Michelle Estill, the 1991 LPGA Rolex Rookie of the Year. Estill returned to her alma mater to coach alongside Farr-Kaye in the months before ASU won the 2017 NCAA title.
With the Sun Devils hosting this year’s NCAA Championship at Grayhawk Golf Club in May, a delayed opportunity given that COVID canceled the 2020 championship, there are plenty of reasons to expect inspired play out of ASU this spring.
“We’re done sitting around,” said Estill of the Pac-12 returning to competition later this month.
Farr-Kaye views coaching as a calling rather a job. The COVID-19 pandemic has been life-changing and perspective-shifting for everyone. Farr-Kaye’s most recent cancer diagnosis brought the Sun Devils even closer.
“Life isn’t always fair, and it doesn’t always make sense,” said Farr-Kaye. “I want to prepare them for life. I feel that’s part of my purpose in why I coach.”
The culture Farr-Kaye builds at ASU, Estill noted, is centered around a family atmosphere. Every player from last year’s roster returned this spring, including fifth-year senior Olivia Mehaffey.
“We cried together and then we pulled ourselves up because coach is such a role model and leader,” said Estill.
“The love we have for each other really shines in times like this.”
While Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray’s breakout second NFL season has Arizona in the playoff hunt, he’s already doing his part to live up to the superstar billing off the field.
Last week, a 12-year-old fan named Hector Nahle reached out to Murray in an Instagram video. Hector, a youth-league quarterback from Monterrey, Mexico, was about to enter surgery for his cancer treatment and wanted to send a message to his favorite NFL quarterback.
Hector let Murray know that the Cardinals quarterback was his inspiration, and he added that he’d love to have the opportunity to meet Murray in person one day.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CIOEWP6B1By/
The power of social media was in full effect here as the video made its way to Murray. And on Thursday, Hector shared a personal response from Murray on Instagram.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CIoBzpcBLvc/
Murray said, inviting Hector and his entire family to Dallas once it’s safe for him to do so:
“Hector, what’s up, bro? It’s Kyler here, man. First and foremost, I want to say you’re a warrior, bro. You inspire me just as much as I inspire you. You’re inspiring all of us. I can’t wait to meet you, but in the meantime, I’m sending you a couple things. Hopefully, you’ll like ‘em. We got a signed game jersey, some merch for you, bro. When you’re fully recovered, we’ll fly you out to Dallas. I know you play quarterback. We’ll get some routes in, we’ll throw some balls around, have some fun, get a nice meal. I’ll fly you and your family out, man. Like I said, I can’t wait to meet you. Keep fighting, dude. Keep fighting, bro. We’re all behind you, thinking about you. We love you, bro.”
You absolutely love to see that. And let’s hope the best for Hector as he continues his recovery.
New Orleans Saints linebacker Demario Davis told TMZ Sports that his daughter Carly-Faith is cancer-free after a battle with retinoblastoma.
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Here’s some great news: New Orleans Saints linebacker Demario Davis announced Monday that his young daughter Carly-Faith is free of retinoblastoma, a rare eye cancer. The treatment required surgical removal, and Carly-Faith now wears a prosthetic.
Davis broke the news to TMZ Sports, saying: “I’m a person that just never try to take anything for granted and to know what she’s been through, even to the point of having to lose her eye, but her body is free of cancer.”
It’s obviously big for the Davis family, and they’re all thankful to put this behind them. And it’s impressive that Davis has been able to compartmentalize the situation against his job as one of the NFL’s best linebackers and a team captain, somehow balancing his commitment to his daughter’s health with what he’s been able to accomplish on the field. Just this week, he notched a dozen tackles in his team’s win over the San Francisco 49ers, the most he’s recorded in a game since signing with the Saints back in 2018.
That certainly speaks to the strength of his character. And he sees this as an opportunity to reach out and support others. Davis added, “We’re able to use her story and bring awareness to a lot of families that probably wouldn’t of known about it if it wasn’t for us going through it.”
Brittany Ferrante played 200 holes of golf in 12 hours to raise $52,000 for breast cancer research.
Most golfers are exhausted after 18 holes of golf, but can you imagine playing 200 holes of golf in 12 hours?
According to an article at LPGA.com, Brittany Ferrante played 200 holes in 12 hours to raise money for breast cancer research. An alumnus of the Division I University of Hartford golf program, Ferrante is an LPGA apprentice and is also currently the director of the junior golf program at The Village Club of Sands Point in Long Island, New York.
When she is not instructing the youth of the game, she is raising money for those battling breast cancer and prostate cancer with the Babes Against Cancer foundation, part of the American Cancer Society.
After completion of the 200 holes, Ferrante had raised a grand total of $52,000 for breast cancer research. “I was speechless because I couldn’t even imagine how much money had been raised,” said Ferrante.
Ferrante doubted herself going into the golf marathon, and originally thought she couldn’t even complete 100 holes.
LPGA apprentice Brittany Ferrante played a lot of golf on one day — all to raise money for breast cancer research. (Photo courtesy LPGA)
Not only did she complete 200 holes of golf, but she also posted some impressive numbers
“I started with a 76, then I had a 72 in the second round and then five 75’s,” said Ferrante. “It made me fall in love with the game even more which I didn’t even think was possible.”
Ferrante had members following her, cheering her on and offering to bring her favorite snacks to guide her through her round; a remarkable day for this role model.
In 2018, the club raised $16,000 and only two years later, the club has more than tripled that number thanks to Ferrante.
“When I made that putt on the 200th hole, I dropped to my knees and I started crying,” explained Ferrante. “I knew how much we were playing for, but I didn’t realize how much the charities had struggled. It was one of the best days of life.”
