By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
Veteran Topeka West boys basketball coach Rick Bloomquist has recorded more than 500 career wins, taken two schools to state championship games and has received numerous accolades over his long career.
But for Bloomquist none of those things tops the chance to ring a bell and clutch a simple, but very meaningful, certificate.
"I've filled out certificates every year of my career and I sign them and I just go through the motions, but I get this one and I get to ring the bell and you just feel warm,'' said Bloomquist, who led Topeka West to a 21-3 record and a second-place finish in Class 5A this past season. "It's just the gratification and a different kind of high.''
That gratification has very little to do with the bell or the certificate, but is all about what Bloomquist went through to get to that point after some eight months of initial uncertainty about his health followed by eight weeks of intense treatment after being diagnosed in February with Stage 3 squamous cell carcinoma in his lymph nodes and neck.
Ringing the bell and being presented with a certificate traditionally marks the end of chemotherapy and radiation treatments at many hospitals around the world, and for the 66-year-old Bloomquist the celebration came after he tested cancer free.
"I was bitter the first couple of weeks,'' Bloomquist admitted. "I mean, I don't know what's going on, and I was feeling sorry for myself. I wasnt approachable and I was just like, 'Get my radiation done and get me out of here.' But the nurses and the medical professionals at the cancer center are the most compassionate people I've ever met in my life and they don't quit.''
Neither did Bloomquist, who lost 45 pounds and had difficulty eating because of where his cancer was located. He also had to have six teeth pulled prior to beginning treatment.
"I needed to gain weight and I couldn't eat,'' Bloomquist said. "You're worried about it and then you worry about all these other things. I know there's people worse than me, but personally you go to dark places. You start thinking about a stroke and you start thinking a heart attack and you start thinking about everything that can happen to you because it's not like going to the doctor and they say, 'Well, you've got strep throat and we're going to give you some medication.'
"It's scary and there were days where it wasn't good. I was like, 'You've got to figure it out big boy, because if you don't get this fixed you're going to die.' ''
But Bloomquist, spurred on by the medical professionals around him and the outpouring of support he received from people across the country, persevered and even managed to maintain his sense of humor.
"I'm feeding myself through a food tube and sitting there waiting two hours so I can do it again and watching Hardee's commercials,'' he said. "I'm sitting there thinking, 'I'm going to eat every Hardee's hamburger I can when get out of here. I want to eat a waffle chicken sandwich.''
LESSONS LEARNED AND LEARNING
Coaches are big on lessons, trying to impart knowledge to their athletes they can use not only in sports but in life.
But coaches can learn lessons, too, a point that's been driven home to Bloomquist on a daily basis during the past several months as he waged his cancer battle.
''It's a whole new way of life,'' he said. "It's one of those deals where you think, 'I have no choice. If you're not coachable and you don't listen to what they say, you're dead. You have no margin of error. Two words that I really understand now are compassion and being humble. You have to look at it as, 'What does life have to offer me that I didn't take advantage of?'
"I thought a lot about that because I had a lot of time to think. You're by yourself about 90 percent of the time and just thinking. Being humble is being able to appreciate what you have and realize that it can be taken away any time. Compassion is caring about other people. Our basketball team, we talk about it all the time and we try to emulate it all the time, but I'm telling you right now, to really understand compassion you have to experience it. I think to understand anything you're talking about, you have to experience it. Now I don't want my kids to experience it the way I'm experiencing it right now, but I want all of them to experience it in a way they can learn from it.''
Bloomquist said he's learned a lot from the people he's interracted with over the past few months, both medical professionals and fellow patients, and he wants to do what he can to re-pay some of the support and compassion that have come his way.
"I'd watch people walk in and they'd kind of have their heads down, like me, and then I'd watch them walk out and I saw hope,'' Bloomquist said. "I saw people that felt better. So what I did on purpose the last two or three weeks is walk out with my shoulders back and a little bit more hop in my step because I wanted people to see me with the attitude that everything's going to be OK.
"It's just a little thing, but you don't know how you can help and I want to help. I'm to the point where I don't know what I can do yet, but I want to do something.''
BACK TO WORK, BACK TO LIVING
Bloomquist's cancer diagnosis came during the stretch run of one of the most successful and most enjoyable seasons of his career.
And although there was a time where Bloomquist wondered if it would be his last season, he is now more determined than ever to keep going.
"I was sitting there one day and you start thinking, 'Is it time to retire? Is it time to just go on and do something else? Was this your sign?' '' he said. "You go through all of that and then you start thinking, 'You love what you do and that's what keeps you going.' ''
Bloomquist continued to coach throughout the Chargers run to the Class 5A championship game, only the third in West's school history, and he credits assistant coaches Marco Hunter, Brandon McDonnell and Dwayne Anthony for keeping things running smoothly.
"Those three guys, I can't talk enough about them,'' Bloomquist said. "It's like they're in the back behind the rock. Nobody sees what they're doing, but they've done so much as far as keeping things together. There's a lot of things that those guys do that go unnoticed. We didn't miss a beat at all.''
Bloomquist also gives kudos to the Charger players for how they handled a tough situation.
"Our kids were just great,'' he said. "I wanted them to be focused, so we really never really talked about anything, but just said, 'Hey, we've got to go play.'
"My assistant coaches were fantastic and the basketball team didn't change because I asked them not to.''
The Chargers will begin summer workouts next Monday with Bloomquist planning to be right in the middle of everything.
"I'm not going to change,'' he said. "My demeanor is I'm still going to coach them hard and I want to be there. I can't wait now because No. 1, I feel better and you still want to give back because it's what I love.
"I got to walk into the cancer center and I walked out and I can quit walking in one of these days. I got a second chance and I want to take advantage of that.''
