Surviving cancer helped shape Cal’s Martin as coach

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As Cuonzo Martin walked into his Indianapolis home with his 4-month-old son Joshua in his arms, he felt weak. His legs quivered. He stretched out his long, thin arms and placed Joshua on the couch.

Then he collapsed.

His wife, Roberta, drove him to the hospital, and doctors immediately peppered Martin with questions. Did he smoke? No. Did he drink? No. He had been playing professional basketball in Italy and was supposed to be in the prime of his career. Instead he wondered if his life was in jeopardy.

“I don’t know if you’re going to die,” a doctor told Martin and his wife that day in 1997, “But whatever you’ve got is really, really serious.”

They learned it was cancer: non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The diagnosis came 17 years ago, but the ensuing fight has profoundly shaped the man who is in his first year as the Cal men’s basketball coach.

“I can’t remember what the stages were, and I didn’t want to know,” said Martin, now 43. “But I do remember my oncology doctor said it was similar to Shaquille O’Neal shooting free throws. Those were the chances.”

As Roberta recalled, “We were just so young. I was like, 'Is this really happening?’ But it was.”

Cuonzo Martin, watching his players perform drills during practice at Haas Pavilion, turned to coaching after his fight with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma 17 years ago when his former college mentor made him an job offer. less Cuonzo Martin, watching his players perform drills during practice at Haas Pavilion, turned to coaching after his fight with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma 17 years ago when his former college mentor made him an job ... more Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Surviving cancer helped shape Cal’s Martin as coach 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

One of the first phone calls Martin made was to Marco Harris, his best friend and now director of basketball operations on Martin’s staff at Cal. Harris thought Martin was laughing hysterically on the other end. He was crying.

“What’s going on?” Harris asked.

Silence.

Harris estimates 45 seconds passed.

“I’ve got cancer,” Martin told him.

The next morning, Harris drove from St. Louis to Indianapolis. What he saw was stunning. Martin had dropped nearly 40 pounds to about 185.

Martin was mostly lethargic while receiving a cocktail of chemotherapy medications for five months. He would lie on the couch and watch his son when he could. Otherwise, he would sleep as much as possible.

“It was really tough at first,” Roberta Martin said. “Somewhere in that process, through faith, we just got a positive outlook on that whole thing and we changed.”

Martin received his last treatment on April 20, 1998. He was cancer free. He then returned to playing basketball and was gearing up to return to Italy when Gene Keady, his college coach at Purdue, called. Keady asked if Martin wanted to come back as a coach.

That jump-started Martin’s career — he spent eight seasons as an assistant with the Boilermakers before taking his first head-coaching job at Missouri State in 2008.

“I can see the change in him big-time,” Harris said. “He really could’ve died. Once you get through that, I think you look at life totally different. You look at what’s important. You control what you can control.”

Martin doesn’t seem to let the little things bother him, given that he conquered a mass the size of a softball in his chest.

He was stoic as ever Sunday night, after his team’s shocking loss to Cal State Bakersfield. And he’ll take his grounded persona into Pac-12 play Friday night, when the Bears host Washington.

Last year, his Tennessee team played Iowa in the First Four of the NCAA Tournament — and Iowa coach Fran McCaffery started the day in a hospital room with his son, Patrick, who had surgery on the morning of the game to remove a tumor that later turned out to be cancer. Tennessee won in an overtime thriller.

Instead of jubilantly celebrating on the court, Tennessee’s players lined up and shook hands with the Hawkeyes. The players shared words and hugs with McCaffery. They wanted McCaffery to know they were thinking about him.

“They heard (Martin’s) message,” McCaffery said. “It meant a lot to me.”

The message was heard by the Bears in a timeout huddle near the end of their Dec. 3 game against Montana, a double-overtime win for Cal. Martin said he told his players that win or lose, they would still be able to play basketball the next day.

And that’s what’s important to him.

“Worst-case scenario, we lose the game, we keep moving,” Martin said. “We keep fighting another day.”

Mike Vernon is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: mvernon@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @M_Vernon