OXNARD, Calif. 鈥 On Wednesday, Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer revealed that he battled and overcame thyroid cancer when he was 28.
The news comes a day after Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones revealed he overcame stage-four cancer, and Schottenheimer appreciates Jones for bringing attention to the devastating topic and giving those who are battling their own cancer currently hope.
"I'm glad that Jerry shared it, just because I think it gives people hope. It gives people the strength to say 'Hey, you can beat this, you can do that.' When you have that type of diagnosis, to have that hope and that ability to think, 'Hey, I can fight through this and maybe I can catch a break and get lucky,' I think that's great."
Schottenheimer learned of his diagnosis in 2002, his first year wondering under his father Marty with the Los Angeles Chargers as the team's quarterbacks coach and found out before the season began.
"You hear that word 'cancer' and it scares the hell out of you," Schottenheimer said. "I was actually in training camp when I got the word from out doctor. I'll never forgetting going to find my dad鈥 saying those words to him just freaked me out鈥"
"It was a very traumatic thing for me."
Schottenheimer recalls pulling his father out of a defensive meeting to give him the news, and Marty immediately made sure to get his son the help he needed.
That process began with a call to former Washington owner Dan Snyder, who was diagnosed with thyroid cancer himself just a few years prior.
"I broke down, of course. I lost it," Schottenheimer recalled when finding his father. "He said 'Hey, we'll figure this out and we'll get you the best help we can get.' And he picked up the phone and called Dan Snyder, a guy that two years before had fired him..."
"He told me when Dan picked up the phone and my dad said to him, 'Dan, I've got a problem. Brian has cancer.' Dan said, 'Marty, give me five minutes. I'll call you back.' And I think it was within 24 to 36 hours I was on the operating table in Rochester, Minnesota."
In that surgery, doctors removed Schottenheimer's thyroid and 17 lymph nodes. It's not lost on him that he's fortunate to have gotten the end result he did, because of the connections that his profession allows him to have.
"It was a scary time, a lot of things moving on," Schottenheimer said."I'm not joking, I was terrified of the fact that I might lose my ability to speak because of my love for coaching. And I was one of the lucky ones. I look at the scar鈥 and I'm reminded how lucky I am鈥"
"We are blessed to have some of the best connections and things like that. I'm honored and humbled to say that if it wasn't for Dan Snyder, if it wasn't for the National Football League, maybe my story was a little bit different."
