Thursday, Jan. 16, 2003 | 9:42 a.m.
The perfect picture of 'Coach' paints itself for Phil Clarke without the slightest effort on his part.
Parked in the district-issue plastic chair beside the natural centerpiece of a ping-pong table in the hopelessly cliche office behind the gym, the trim 51-year-old man with tightly-cropped graying hair, white Palo Verde Panthers T-shirt, black athletic pants, basketball sneakers and neon green whistle lanyard chats away about free-throw shooting woes and hustle.
This guy is the head basketball coach at Anywho High in Anytown, USA, no doubt about it. One glance at him prints the business cards.
And Clarke, a fixture on the Southern Nevada basketball scene for more than 20 years, would have it no other way. In fact, he swears that identity he so loves is what keeps him focused and positive through the most trying time of his life -- after a routine physical exam in late July, Clarke was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
"I never thought it would be cancer because I felt too good," Clarke said.
Clarke said he rarely stopped thinking positive, even through the months of physically taxing chemotherapy and mentally exhausting fear of the disease. He credits being able to stay at work and in coaching, keeping some sense of normalcy in a most abnormal trial, for making it bearable.
Clarke carries a renewed sense of perspective around practice these days. The requisite teaching and discipline are there, of course, but so are a smile and some lighthearted fun with his players.
"The coaching really helped, just being around the guys," Clarke said.
Today, Clarke, who considers himself "lucky" to have a treatable form of cancer, is defeating the lymphoma. His doctors at Summerlin Medical Center say he is not quite in remission, but he is "significantly better," with evidence of the disease fading.
"My hat's off to him," said Palo Verde athletic director Darwin Rost, a close friend of Clarke. "Most guys, I don't know if they actually coach this season."
Clarke takes pride in noting that he has missed just two games through his treatments.
His team's battling and perseverant personality seems to mirror that of its coach. The young and athletic Panthers, ranked No. 5 in the Sun Statewide Top 10, are 16-3 heading into a date with No. 1 Cheyenne.
To predict this six months ago would barely have been plausible.
Feeling pain in his side and suffering from night sweats, Clarke decided to finally complete a physical he started in January. Blood tests revealed anemia and a subsequent biopsy of his lymph nodes confirmed that Clarke had non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a disease that claimed an estimated 53,900 new cases in the United States in 2002, according to the American Cancer Society.
As he starts and pauses, and starts again, in detailing everything that happened in July, Clarke grasps for a level of comfort in hearing his own description of the events. That comfort disappears, though, as does the exterior of 'Coach' when it comes to recalling having to tell his sons about the lymphoma.
"They're too young to lose me," Clarke said as he fought away tears.
Clarke and his wife, Diana, and two boys were shocked and sobered by the news. With his younger son just a sophomore at Palo Verde and his older son away at college, communication among the family members about the situation became essential to emotional survival.
"I guess you never think it's going to be you," Diana Clarke said. "We were just stunned."
Even on that diagnosis day, though, something drew the man who learned under Joe Stein and coached at Rancho, Western, Cheyenne and now Palo Verde, back to the court.
"He just said, "I need to go back to the gym,' " Diana said.
Clarke also decided he had to let his players in on the news, considering he had no idea how he often he would be around during the chemotherapy. "Some of the kids I've had for three or four years, so they were pretty concerned," Clarke said.
The Clarkes took a scheduled vacation to the beach, a final chance to regroup before the real fight began. The doctor's warnings about his first chemotherapy session could not prepare Clarke for what came.
"It's scary, all the symptoms and the side effects," Clarke said.
At one point in his first treatment, Clarke shook uncontrollably for about 15 minutes. His doctors called it a common reaction.
"I'm thinking, 'I don't think I want to do this anymore,' " Clarke said.
In time, though, Clarke adjusted as best he could to the 21-day treatment cycle of chemotherapy, pills, fatigue, recovery and starting the whole thing over five more times. "It just becomes a normal part of your life," Diana said.
Normal was all Clarke strived for anyway. Some days, he would skip out for an hour or two at school when he went for blood tests. He would miss a bit of practice here and there, when the fatigue was just too much. With former Valley head coach Paul Aznarez on board as an assistant, Clarke felt confident the team would be in good hands.
With a team that is far exceeding preseason expectations, Clarke's judgment appears to be correct. The Panthers have created aspirations of tomorrow for themselves.
Just as Clarke has done for himself.
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