BucCANEers
Junior
- Joined
- Jul 27, 2013
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I just read a nice article about Jim Kelly. It talks about his challenges of going through cancer and the passing of his child and his time at Miami.
And now, the charismatic quarterback considered among the toughest to ever play the game, the on-field warrior whose body has been repeatedly carved by surgeons, is beating another nemesis — cancer.
“They had to remove my whole upper jaw and pretty much all through my left side of the cheek,” said Kelly, 53, of his squamous cell carcinoma. “I’m getting there, but I’m not a very patient person. I wanted things to feel good from start to finish. There’s still pain, but the only time it really bothers me is when I talk for a while.
“I’ve already taken my Advil, so I’m feeling a lot better now.”
Kelly had surgery in June to remove the cancer and wears a prosthesis connected to “a couple of teeth I still have left,” he said during a phone interview with the Miami Herald. “I know that sounds gross. I went to the recent Pro Football Hall of Fame ceremony and everybody was like, ‘What does it feel like?’ and I was like, ‘Man, you don’t need to hear my problems. You probably have enough of your own.”
Kelly’s first start as a redshirt freshman in the eighth game of 1979 is still considered one of UM’s greatest victories, a 26-10 upset of then 40-point favorite Penn State. Kelly passed for 280 yards and three touchdowns.
Art Kehoe, UM’s current offensive line coach, was Kelly’s left guard in that game. Don Bailey Jr., current UM football radio analyst for WQAM, was Kelly’s freshman center who made his first start in the same game. Bailey recalled coach Howard Schnellenberger telling Kelly just moments before the game that he was going to start.
“Jim walked into the bathroom and threw up,” Bailey said.
“To be honest,” Kelly said, “I thought I was going to that game to get chocolate chip cookies from mom and dad and hopefully get an opportunity to play when Penn State was beating up on us. But it turned out that I started and we beat up on them.”
Bailey, Kehoe and countless other Hurricanes fans, call it “the game that put Miami on the map” and spawned “Quarterback U.”
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/10/19/3697494/miami-hurricanes-legend-jim-kelly.html#storylink=cpy
And now, the charismatic quarterback considered among the toughest to ever play the game, the on-field warrior whose body has been repeatedly carved by surgeons, is beating another nemesis — cancer.
“They had to remove my whole upper jaw and pretty much all through my left side of the cheek,” said Kelly, 53, of his squamous cell carcinoma. “I’m getting there, but I’m not a very patient person. I wanted things to feel good from start to finish. There’s still pain, but the only time it really bothers me is when I talk for a while.
“I’ve already taken my Advil, so I’m feeling a lot better now.”
Kelly had surgery in June to remove the cancer and wears a prosthesis connected to “a couple of teeth I still have left,” he said during a phone interview with the Miami Herald. “I know that sounds gross. I went to the recent Pro Football Hall of Fame ceremony and everybody was like, ‘What does it feel like?’ and I was like, ‘Man, you don’t need to hear my problems. You probably have enough of your own.”
Kelly’s first start as a redshirt freshman in the eighth game of 1979 is still considered one of UM’s greatest victories, a 26-10 upset of then 40-point favorite Penn State. Kelly passed for 280 yards and three touchdowns.
Art Kehoe, UM’s current offensive line coach, was Kelly’s left guard in that game. Don Bailey Jr., current UM football radio analyst for WQAM, was Kelly’s freshman center who made his first start in the same game. Bailey recalled coach Howard Schnellenberger telling Kelly just moments before the game that he was going to start.
“Jim walked into the bathroom and threw up,” Bailey said.
“To be honest,” Kelly said, “I thought I was going to that game to get chocolate chip cookies from mom and dad and hopefully get an opportunity to play when Penn State was beating up on us. But it turned out that I started and we beat up on them.”
Bailey, Kehoe and countless other Hurricanes fans, call it “the game that put Miami on the map” and spawned “Quarterback U.”
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/10/19/3697494/miami-hurricanes-legend-jim-kelly.html#storylink=cpy
