• 11/2/2003
  • Alabama
  • Monique Curet
  • University of Alabama

Pat Sullivan loaned his name to campaign against smokeless tobacco as part of his fight against oral cancer

Pat Sullivan is no stranger to the Iron Bowl, the annual match-up between Auburn and Alabama. The 1971 Heisman Trophy winner continues to rank as one of the top passers in Auburn’s history, and he also spent six years as an assistant coach at the school.

Now a coach at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, 53-year-old Sullivan is fighting a new opponent: oral cancer. He was diagnosed in September with cancer that was at the base of his tongue and spread to the lymph nodes in his neck. A two-decade smokeless tobacco user, Sullivan has decided to lend his name and support to the Alabama Department of Public Health’s campaign against smokeless tobacco use.

We all think we’re invincible, but we’re not, Sullivan said, adding that he hopes to raise awareness among young people. Sullivan started coaching at UAB in 1999 and is the team’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.

Cancer of the mouth and throat is the sixth most common cancer among males, according to the health department. Each year in Alabama, 600 new cases of oral cancer are diagnosed, and 150 people die from it, the agency reports. Because its rate of oral cancer has increased over the past 20 years, Alabama received a grade of D-minus on the 2003 Oral Health America Report Card.

Recent studies have indicated that about 30 percent of boys in grades 9-12 in Alabama used smokeless tobacco in the past month, (and) 7.5 percent of adult males in the state (twice the national average) are spit tobacco users, the health department reports.

Sullivan’s smokeless tobacco use stemmed from his involvement in athletics, he said. Before he started playing pro football — first for the Atlanta Falcons and then the Washington Redskins — he thought the product was nasty, he said. But when he needed something to help him stay awake during meetings and give him energy during training camp, he turned to smokeless tobacco. He said he tried to tell himself that it wasn’t as bad for him as smoking.

Sullivan has completed his chemotherapy treatments, which he said went well, and begins a 6 to 7-week course of radiation therapy next week. He stopped using smokeless tobacco completely in July, just a few months before his diagnosis.

Sullivan, who is married with three children and three grandchildren, said his family was the first thing he thought of after being diagnosed. He didn’t want them to suffer because of him. He said “having cancer is as humbling a thing that’s ever happened in my life”.