Longshot Old Dominion Basketball Is Headed Into March Madness– Beloved Head Coach Jeff Jones Faces A Prostate Cancer Relapse

“If that cancer is gone and done, great. If it ever comes back, knowing what your options are and how to move forward is going to become more and more important,” says Dr. Edwin Posadas, Urologic Oncologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.   “And I will tell you that if you have access to genetic information that can help us in the next… You have to think about prostate cancer not in a six-month window.  You’ve gotta think about the fact I have this disease now, I’m going to be around for a number of years.”

According to Dr. Posadas, it’s important to stay proactive and informed about your disease, especially about your genetic information, even after you’re in remission. “It gives you that opportunity to think about how do I need to be monitored before I get there? Because you always want to catch these things early. You don’t want to catch a prostate cancer when it’s widely spread and causing you harm, eroding into your bones or your liver or your lungs,” says Dr. Posadas. “So if you know, if I have a high risk prostate cancer, I should be seeing my doctor at least four times a year to check either a PSA or the new blood test that comes out because I’m high-risk, or I need scans more frequently, because sometimes and unfortunately, in my opinion, a little too often doctors get a little too reliant on PSA testing, and they forget to look at the rest of the patient.”

And in the case of high risk of prostate cancer, it’s important you don’t rely too heavily on the PSA, says Dr. Posadas. “The idea that PSA shows everything is really not true in this case.  Double checking PSA for someone like myself is a standard approach. I like to make sure that while the PSA test is registering clean, nothing else is showing up.  Fortunately our imaging tests are getting better and better, and I would advise men, especially those with high-grade or molecularly abnormal prostate cancers to really think about discussing with a doctor whether or not additional testing beyond prostate cancer is necessary to monitor their disease.”

“Current guidelines are to start screening at age 55, and continue screening through age 70. The reason for that is that prostate cancer diagnosed after age 70 has a reasonable low probability that it’s going to take your life. And the reason for that is prostate cancer, even in aggressive forms, when it’s localized, is a relatively slow-growing cancer,” says Dr. James Brooks, urologic oncologist at Stanford Medicine.

But, according to Dr. David Wise, Medical Oncologist at NYU Perlmutter Cancer Center, men at risk should start getting tested earlier. “Men who are at high risk because of family history, should have PSA testing earlier, at latest age 40 they should have an initial PSA. That PSA at a younger age is a more accurate test, because the prostate has not increased in size, which can cause the test to be more difficult to interpret.”

Jones told reporters he plans to stay focused and committed to his basketball team. "There's no way I'm going to allow it to change my approach, my commitment. It sure won't change my desire to win," Jones said. "I told [the team], 'I've had this for a year now and you haven't seen any difference in me and you're not going to see any difference now, either.' You're going to get my very, very best every day.’ I also joked with them a little, and said this doesn't mean I'm going to be any nicer. I'm still as competitive as ever."

“My goal, my intention, is after we’re done here, I don’t wanna think about cancer anymore,” Jones said in his statement, “I want to focus and think about the season and how we can win some basketball games.”

"I have known Jeff Jones for more than 30 years and he is a very private person," Dr. Wood Selig, Old Dominion University Athletic Director told ODU Athletics News. "For Jeff to be so forthcoming and open about his recent illness is a testament to his character and his resolve to raise the awareness of prostate cancer and to compassionately support those who may face similar circumstances. True to his nature, Jeff has always been the consummate team player in his support of others. How he is dealing with this is further evidence of that unique and very admirable quality."

And Jones was unwavering about his ability to coach without changes in his performance. “I dare anybody to come up with a way that [prostate cancer] has negatively impacted me or our team or our program. I think quite honestly my hip and having a hip replacement was more of a detriment to my coaching that the reoccurrence.”

When asked why he was coming forward to talk about his cancer diagnosis openly, Jones said he wanted the people in his life to hear it from him first. “It was going to get out. The circle, for a number of different reasons, kept getting a little bit bigger, and quite honestly I didn’t like keeping it a secret from a lot of folks. I think I had very valid and good reasons for not saying anything initially. But I didn’t want my players to hear from someone else. I didn’t want friend to hear from someone else,” said Coach Jones. “I felt — I don’t know if guilty is the right word– but when folks would come up to me just kind of randomly and ask “coach how you doing?” and I knew just from the tone of their voice what they were talking about, not being able to be fully honest… I just wanted to kind of get past that.”

Jones also said he wants to use the opportunity to help others by raising awareness and money for people going through the same thing he is. “The second part of it quite honestly is to be able to– potentially maybe can we help somebody else. My wife revealed yesterday that she started a fund raiser for American Cancer Society and Coaches Vs. Cancer called Hope Watch. And trying to raise funds for families that are dealing with cancer, and trying to defray some of the costs that they may have that can be a burden on a lot of folks.”

“Everything was all jumbled together, my thoughts, my emotions. Number one just being very happy to be the Conference USA champion and go to the NCAA basketball tournament,” Jones said in an interview about the moment the Monarchs won. “We had been fighting and we had come close but we hadn’t crossed that threshold in the last six years, so finally being able to do that, that was a great feeling. And then looking out there and seeing the joy, our guys out there jumping around and dancing around. I love this group. They’ve worked hard, they’ve earned everything that they’ve gotten and achieved, and seeing them so happy, that was overwhelming.”

He also said that his cancer journey made the win even more emotional. “And then you know, the cancer stuff. It’s been a great year but it hasn’t been an easy year. Dealing with some of the things, you know, the side effects and all that, and just kind of getting to this point, it was an emotional moment. I just kind of took a moment to collect myself. But it was great and we couldn’t be happier to be participating.”

The March Madness tournament begins March 19th.

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