• 9/14/2004
  • South Florida
  • By Shannon Shelton
  • The Sun-Sentinel

Pat Sullivan faced the fiercest of opponents during his college career at Auburn and won the 1971 Heisman Trophy for his fearless resolve as quarterback.

“When he stepped in that huddle, whether it was fourth-and-1 or fourth-and-20, we believed in Pat Sullivan,” said former Auburn teammate and close friend Terry Henley. With the same determination, Sullivan, now an offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at UAB, declared to an audience of 500 at a Monday Morning Quarterback Club gathering last October in Birmingham that he was prepared to conquer his latest foe.

He had been diagnosed with oral cancer a month earlier, something he attributes to his 25 years of using smokeless tobacco. “I will defeat this thing,” Sullivan said. And Henley didn’t doubt him for a second.

“When he said he was going to whip this, we believed him,” Henley said. “If there’s a foxhole and he’s in, I want to be in there with him.”

Barely a year after his cancer diagnosis, Sullivan has returned to the Blazers’ football program and will attempt to lead UAB to an upset over Florida State on Saturday in Tallahassee. He shows few signs of the ravages of the intensive round of chemotherapy and radiation treatments that caused him to drop 50 pounds and lose his hair. The radiation burned his throat so much that doctors were unable to insert a feeding tube during a bout with pneumonia. A two-inch scar on the left side of his neck, the result of doctors removing 20 lymph nodes, is the only visible sign of Sullivan’s fight.

“I’m cancer-free and doing great,” Sullivan said. “The good Lord is taking care of me and I’m getting stronger every day.” With his life renewed, he’s now determined to make sure no one faces the same fate he did.

“I want to lead by example,” Sullivan said. “I’m sure I probably influenced some kids in the past [with his smokeless tobacco usage], and I regret that. Now when I see someone doing it, I try to say something to them.” Sullivan started with those closest to him. He said he convinced all but one Blazers coach to quit. He responds to e-mails, letters and phone calls from across the country from fans, coaches and other players who’ve told him that his story inspired them to quit. He’s also lent his name and status as a state football legend to help the Alabama Department of Public Health’s initiative against smokeless tobacco.

In some cases, Sullivan didn’t have to talk to anyone directly. Henley said that after the quarterback club speech, one attendee walked out the door and threw his can of smokeless tobacco in the garbage. Joe Garagiola, the national chairman of Oral Health America’s National Spit Tobacco Education Program (NSTEP), said he would love to have Sullivan become a national advocate against the product. “I hope he joins us,” Garagiola said. “He’s the most recent story we have of a former athlete developing cancer after using spit tobacco.” Garagiola said those like himself and Sullivan are losing ground in the battle to keep young people from starting smokeless tobacco and getting current users to quit.

Minor-league baseball has banned the use of smokeless tobacco in 1993. The NCAA followed in 1994, extending its ban to all tobacco products. Yet even with increased education, advocacy and publicity about the effects of smokeless tobacco usage, statistics show that many young people are ignoring the messages and that smokeless tobacco usage might even be rising.

According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as many as 20 percent of high school boys used smokeless tobacco in the 30 days preceding the survey in 2001. In Florida, that percentage was 9.8.

The Federal Trade Commission reported that manufacturer’s sales of smokeless tobacco have increased every year since 1985, up to $2.13 billion in 2001. “I’ve been at this for over 20 years now, and I firmly believe more than ever that this is a hidden epidemic. People don’t realize how bad this stuff is,” said Garagiola, who prefers using the term “spit” to describe loose tobacco as opposed to “smokeless.” “It’s a warm, fuzzy kind of word that makes it seem harmless,” he said. “But it’s a deadly, addictive habit, believe me.”

Sullivan said he started dipping when he began playing in the NFL. He said smokeless tobacco prevented him from dozing off in team meetings and gave him energy during training camp. “You just get addicted,” Sullivan said. “I admit I was.”

During his 25 years of usage, he’d attempt to quit, sometimes leaving it alone for a month at a time. However, he’d eventually go back. By July 2003, he had quit for good. “When I really made up my mind to stop, I just did,” he said. “I’ve never touched it again.”

It wasn’t soon enough.

Six weeks later, on Sept. 10, he was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma when doctors found the cancer at the base of his tongue and in lymph nodes in his neck. Sullivan immediately called his closest friends and family and told his UAB team three days later in then locker room after a 20-9 loss to Troy State. “From that point, we started a prayer trail that wouldn’t quit,” said Henley, who said he got a call from Sullivan a few hours after he returned from the office of Dr. William Carroll, a throat surgeon at UAB. “There was a web of hope and prayers around the country that was pulling him through this thing.”

Sullivan chose to take on the most radical treatment available with three months of intensive chemotherapy followed by 35 radiation treatments over four months. He attended UAB practices when he could and made all but one game, despite his ongoing fatigue. The radiation came after the 2003 football season ended. Sullivan said the treatments, which he endured five days a week, burned his neck and throat.

With two treatments remaining, Sullivan developed pneumonia and a 103-degree fever. The radiation treatments had burned his throat closed and he was unable to swallow whole foods. Doctors couldn’t even get a feeding tube down his throat to give him nutrients and medicine. It was the direst point in his battle with cancer.

There were prayers. Tears. Realization that the best efforts to beat the illness night not be enough. Sullivan only remembers someone turning him on his side and getting the tube in.

Henley still remembers the phone conversation he had with Sullivan after that moment. “Henlo,” he said Sullivan said, “I think I’ve turned the corner.” “That’s great,” Henley answered. “We’re going to go fishing, we’re going to go hunting and we’re going to enjoy life.” Sullivan said that was fine. But those weren’t his immediate plans, Henley said.

“Henlo, the first thing we’re going to do is get out there and teach these kids not to use smokeless tobacco.”

From that point, Sullivan’s health only improved. When he finished his final two radiation treatments, friends put a banner on his front lawn. It read, “Touchdown.”

Sullivan said he would continue to influence the lives of his peers both on and off the field by encouraging them to avoid smokeless tobacco. He said his biggest obstacle is convincing current and potential users that what happened to him can strike one of them.

“I was no different in that way,” Sullivan said. “We all think that it’s going to happen to the other guy… Of course, I was the other guy.”