Source: CNN Author: Madison Park (CNN) -- It brought a tough, All-Star NBA coach to tears this week. And it stilled the voice of a famous film critic. Head and neck cancers are rare, but known to be severe -- they can strip away a person's voice, distort the face and rob the basic abilities to eat, drink and swallow. The cancer can be so disfiguring, some patients seldom appear in public. In a tear-filled press conference this week, Denver Nuggets coach George Karl announced he has a type of neck and throat cancer. Karl said he will continue to coach, but will miss some games and practices. His type of cancer -- a squamous cell tumor found on his right tonsil -- is the most common and expected to be treatable with radiation and chemotherapy. Also this week, Esquire profiled film critic Roger Ebert, who also had a head and neck cancer. He suffered complications from surgery to treat the cancer that had spread to the salivary gland. The magazine published a full-page photo of the film critic, who no longer has a lower jaw. Ebert spent little time feeling sorry for himself: "If we think we have physical imperfections, obsessing about them is only destructive. Low self-esteem involves imagining the worst that other people can think about you. That means they're living upstairs in the rent-free room," he wrote on his blog after the photo published. While Ebert cannot speak, he continues to lambaste bad movies online. Head and neck [...]