Source: www.hattiesburgamerican.com
Author: Patrick Magee

Barney Farrar has never been one to back down from any type of fight.

The Mississippi native is a determined man whose tenacity makes him a passionate coach and dogged recruiter as a member of the Southern Miss football team’s coaching staff.

He’s also known as a compassionate man who will make a visit on his own to the ailing parents of one of the countless high school coaches he’s gotten to know over his lengthy career of recruiting his home state.

So when word came down in July that Farrar had been diagnosed with throat cancer, the reaction sent waves around the close community of football coaches. He received many calls from coaching cohorts wishing him well.

Once the kind words were behind him, Farrar battened down for the biggest battle of his life, which has yet to reach a full conclusion.

“They diagnosed it as a category three, but they moved it up to a category four because of the size of the tumor. That scared me,” Farrar said. “They told me to not be too alarmed over that at that point because it was just the size that moved me into the worst category.”

From there, it was a matter of finding the right course of treatment for the lump in his throat that doctors say had likely been there for a year, when he was living in Iowa, before it was diagnosed by Hattiesburg physicians.

Farrar, 48, visited different clinics around the South before he made a trek to Little Rock, Ark., to visit Dr. Amarjit Sen.

“I found out about Dr. Sen in Little Rock and I felt like the Lord drew my heart to that, and what a great one he was,” Farrar said. “He was like walking in a huddle with Brett Favre. When that guy looked in my eyes, he said ‘Coach, we’re going to get you well.’ When he said that, I said ‘Yeah, we’re going to get well.’

“It was like Brett Favre saying ‘Hey, I’m taking you to the end zone. We’re going to score and we’re going to win this championship. That’s what you want to hear.”

After debating over which course of treatment to go through, Farrar settled on a plan that required him to go through 62 radiation treatments and chemotherapy over a course of seven weeks. He had a port placed in his chest where the chemotherapy could be directed to his body via a tube. Farrar had his chemotherapy treatments every Monday for a length of six hours and had radiation treatments twice a day.

Side effects

Even though he has likely finished all of his radiation and chemotherapy, the implant remains in his side and a feeding tube is still connected directly to his stomach through his abdominal wall.

“It’s just cumbersome and bothersome,” Farrar said as he lifted his shirt to show his feeding tube. “In the first two or three weeks, that hurt me more than the radiation or any of the treatments.

“I don’t think people understand all the side effects. The cancer is cancer, but the side effects from the treatment are the things that hurt you.”

Farrar has been diligent about keeping his weight up, and he’s managed to lose no more than 11 pounds throughout his regimen.

Southern Miss sophomore tight end Jonathan Massey has noticed how the feeding tube can be an annoyance to his coach.

“Every now and then he’ll adjust it or something during a meeting,” Massey said. “He does the things he has to do. It doesn’t shock us. It’s not really making a scene; we just continue on with the meeting.”

One of the minor side effects that bothered Farrar the most was the fact that the treatment prevented him from producing saliva, even though that ability is slowly returning.

“I told him, ‘You’ve got to understand when you’re going through this not to worry about that,'” said Bobby Dews, a long-time Southern Miss booster and also a one-time oral cancer patient. “You’ve got to eat to live, not live to eat. It will come back soon, but the very least of your problems is your taste.”

Dews became close to Farrar as he went through his torturous regimen. He also got to know current Samford coach and former Heisman Trophy winner Pat Sullivan, who also once suffered from oral cancer.

“Bobby has been my best friend because he knows the pain I’ve felt,” Farrar said. “He knows the questions that I have in mind, and sometimes he would call and answer my question before I called and asked him. I didn’t even have to call.”

The toughest part of the treatment came in the final stages for Farrar.

“They gave me a heavy induction of the chemotherapy three weeks after I completed the 62 radiation treatments, and it will knock you to your knees if you weren’t prepared in your mind,” Farrar said. “They were making me feel good about myself and telling me I’d done better than most that go through it. When I went through the chemo I was probably feeling too good about myself because two days later, I was probably weaker than I’d ever been since I started treatment.

“I probably felt weird that UAB week because I was in the middle of it, but before the UCF game I had a spell before the game that wasn’t good. (USM head trainer) Todd (McCall) got me to the sidelines and gave me this cold towel and juiced me up (with an IV) and I was good to go.”

Always there

The part that is most amazing about how Farrar handled his treatment is that he was never far from sight at USM practices and he was constantly going over film and doing what he could to help the coaching staff recruit the state he knows so well.

“I don’t think I missed a practice actually,” said Farrar, who can be seen striding the sidelines during games. “I might have missed parts of practice because of being in treatment and I’d get there a little late. There were some days where it was hard to be there, but I’d rather be there than laying down.”

USM head coach Larry Fedora, who Farrar credits a great deal for helping him through the process, often found himself trying to make sure his tight ends coach didn’t overdo it.

“Constantly, I’d say ‘Go home and get some rest,'” Fedora said. “But he takes that as a challenge. So he doesn’t do it and I worry about him constantly. There were times I had to challenge him because he was down and he was tired and I could see it. Some people you couldn’t do that with, but Barney needed that. That’s what gets him out of bed every morning.

“He has been an inspiration to every one of our players and our staff.”

Farrar’s cancer treatment put the Golden Eagles’ five-game losing streak into perspective for the players, and the coach has thoroughly enjoyed watching his team rebound and sit one win away from bowl eligibility entering the final game of the regular season.

“To me, it’s like what I’ve been through,” Farrar said. “It’s a fight, but what are you going to do when things get tough? I found out what these guys are going to do when they get tough. They never changed. They never missed a beat and they stayed right in line with what they were doing and boom, it started clicking.”

Road ahead

Farrar has been encouraged with what doctors have told him in recent checkups as the tumor has visibly shrunk from its original size.

“With the naked eye, they looked in there and they feel like the tumor has completely shrunk,” Farrar said. “I still have a CT scan and PET scan to go through. They have to scan my blood work and, possibly, they’re going to try to do one more treatment just to make sure that’s stuff not in your body.”

Farrar’s faith has played a big part in maintaining his strong will throughout his treatment, and he’s confident that he’s surpassed yet another hurdle.

“I feel that God has blessed me throughout this and he has helped me understand who I am,” Farrar said. “I had a terrible car accident in 1983 that should have blinded me, should have given me brain damage. Long story short, he has brought me through another time in my life.

Farrar says he could possibly undergo one more chemotherapy treatment before he will have a CT scan late in December. He should know by the end of the year whether or not he has been given a clean bill of health.

“I could have been one of those 7,000 other (cancer patients) that die with it every year, but I didn’t,” Farrar said. “I’m still alive and healthy right now. I won’t know until the tests come through, but in my heart I know.”