Jack Ramsay

During my 11-year coaching tenure, Saint Joseph's won or tied for the Big Five championship seven times, went to 10 postseason tournaments - including seven NCAA appearances - and reached the Final Four in 1961.

I'm very fortunate to have gotten past the cancer problem.

I learned how important physical conditioning is. I learned how to focus on an objective in spite of all kinds of hazards. I learned how to deal with stress, too.

You didn't hear anything about 'Celtic Pride' when they had Sidney Wicks and Curtis Rowe and they were only winning 32 games a year.

In 1955-56, Saint Joseph's won the first Big Five championship, compiled a 23-6 overall record, and entered its first postseason competition ever - the National Invitation Tournament - finishing third. That season's success seemed to vault St. Joe's into the national collegiate basketball scene, and it has been there since.

The Big Five is a competition played in the University of Pennsylvania's Palestra among five Philadelphia-area Division I schools: Saint Joseph's, La Salle, Penn, Temple, and Villanova. 'The Big Five' was immensely popular, and rivalries quickly grew to intense proportions.

I got interested in coaching while I played at St. Joseph's. Because we played a national schedule, we played teams coached by Nat Holman, Joe Lapchick, Hank Iba, and others. I could see the impact the coach had on their teams, and I thought, 'That's a pretty good thing to do.'

Teams that play together beat those teams with superior players who play more as individuals.

I don't think there's ever been a team that ever scored more layups than that Blazers team.

Cancer is the ugliest, scariest, most dreaded word in the English language. My credentials for saying so? Head-to-head, firsthand close encounters with different versions of the fiendish devil.

I went through my entire athletic life as a basketball player with only minimal physical setbacks, the worst being a couple of brain concussions, one in a college game in 1948, the other in 1954 while playing in the Eastern League, from which I recovered without permanent damage.

I've been blessed. I've had a great life and am continuing to have one.