It was a series of events so wicked and cruel that even the most vicious mind couldn’t invent it if it tried.
In mid-February, John Rhodes — Duquesne’s gentle giant of an assistant men’s basketball coach, a man who greets most anyone with a hug — was diagnosed with cancer. Four days later, he was hit by a speeding car.
The setbacks were jarring and, for many, insurmountable. But as a cancer-free Rhodes sits down nearly eight months later and tells the tale of his road back, he does so with a new sense of purpose. For all the misfortune, fear and physical strain he had to endure, he believes his story can help others.
“This is all bigger than basketball,” Rhodes said Thursday. “This is about life. If my challenge helps you deal with an obstacle or hurdle down the road, that’s part of my purpose for being here.”
That challenge rose from confusion.
In late January, mysterious lumps began to appear on his body. Given the school’s proximity to Consol Energy Center, the initial fear was he had been affected by the mumps outbreak that plagued the Penguins one month earlier. A visit to the doctor, though, revealed a much graver reality — Rhodes had squamous cell carcinoma, a form of skin cancer.
He was set to begin treatment 10 days later, but yet again, fate struck about as cruelly as it could. While walking in Philadelphia a day before a Dukes game against La Salle, Rhodes was struck by a car crossing the street, fracturing the tibia and fibula in his right leg. He was transported to a local hospital, where he underwent six hours of surgery to have two plates and a rod inserted.
“It’s really hard because he and I are really close,” forward Darius Lewis said. “He’s like family to me. He’s been to my house, asks me about my parents. To me, it was like Uncle John got hit by a car. That’s my man right there.”
While Rhodes was assured the bones would heal, an uncertain battle for his life awaited. He underwent 35 radiation treatments and seven chemotherapy sessions over a seven-week span, a rigorous routine that caused him to lose about 80 pounds.
Throughout that process, he found peace in the team he coached and college basketball as a whole. Dukes players like fellow cancer survivor Derrick Colter would visit him in the hospital. Duquesne head coach Jim Ferry’s mother would cook him meals. Even peers such as then-VCU coach Shaka Smart would send weekly texts to ask how he was and provide encouragement.
By late April, the tumor had disappeared, as had the inner turmoil he concealed beneath his radiant personality.
There’s a story Ferry likes to tell from his team’s trip to Ireland in August, a moment that signaled Rhodes was back. At the Blarney Castle, there’s a narrow and steep climb to get to the famed Blarney Stone that’s difficult for most anyone, let alone a 6-foot-9 man on crutches. Much of the team figured Rhodes wouldn’t be able to make it up there for a team picture, but, almost symbolically, he found a way. He had won the fight.
“I go over and I’m like ‘John, what are you doing? That was tough,’ ” Ferry said. “He looks at me and says, with an expletive, ‘Screw that. All of those days, I laid in my bed thinking I might die. There was no way I wasn’t going to do this.’ ”
Craig Meyer: cmeyer@post-gazette.com and Twitter @CraigMeyerPG.
First Published: October 2, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
