Today, I sent out a press release system wide.

Here it is on oursportscentral.

http://www.oursportscentral.co...m-for-sale/n-5108671

An important announcement from the owner of the Colorado Crush Indoor Football Team

Dear fans, sponsors, staff and players,

I have always attempted to run the Colorado Crush openly and honestly the last five plus years. Therefore, I write to you all the following:

In January of this year, I was diagnosed as terminally ill. At best, I have been given about three to five years to live. Because of this, my life priorities have changed and I will retire from professional football at the conclusion of this season.

Rest assured that the Crush will finish this season, all current year season contracts will be honored, and all current year season bills will be paid in full sometime after the season is over.

I announce today that the Colorado Crush Indoor Football Team is for sale. I am working closely with the Indoor Football League and others in our community with the hopes a new owner or owners can be found to continue indoor professional football in Northern Colorado. Those interested in acquiring the Colorado Crush organization can call Mike McCoy of the Indoor Football League office at 308-258-4429 or Aaron Ontiveros of the Colorado Crush at 970-472-0128.

I extend my personal thanks to all fans and sponsors of the Colorado Ice/Colorado Crush. I consider you all part of my extended family. I hope you feel the same and understand that given my time left on the planet, my life and my family's lives must take a new and different direction in the future.
A huge thank you to my general manager, head coach and more importantly good friend Heron O'Neal for all his hard work in building one of the most respected franchises in the Indoor Football League. My thanks also extend to my loyal staff, the IFL and all my playing partners/teams as well.

It has been a pleasure to be at the helm all these years and it saddens me, my wife Patty, and our daughters to inform you of this news.

Please continue to support the Crush and our sponsors this season as we make a final push to bring the IFL championship home to Colorado this year.

Go Crush!

All the best,
(My Name)
Owner
Colorado Crush Indoor Football

Sorry to read that, lbj. That must have been difficult to write and send out. Best of luck to you.

lbj, my heart is heavy when I think of what you are dealing with, but I have an enormous amount of respect for the way you are handling it.

I wish I had more to offer, lbj. You and your family continue to have our prayers and hopes. Have faith and take fresh courage, brother.

Lbj

Do you go to any of the away games like Tri-cities or Spokane?
I Would make a trip over and say hi at the game. Maybe bring a group of Sigfourmers to support you.

My wife went to TriCities a few years back.

Thanks for the invite, but I do not think I will be going.

As far as the press release, it went out late afternoon yesterday.
Any fallout will not be known until later this morning.
My assumption is there will be some.

That said, I suppose I could have held back on the timing and done it 2 months from now, but that would not have felt right to me. It would have been dishonest.

I am OK with retiring.

quote:

Originally posted by lbj:
My wife went to TriCities a few years back.

Thanks for the invite, but I do not think I will be going.

As far as the press release, it went out late afternoon yesterday.
Any fallout will not be known until later this morning.
My assumption is there will be some.

That said, I suppose I could have held back on the timing and done it 2 months from now, but that would not have felt right to me. It would have been dishonest.

I am OK with retiring.

You spoke with your heart. You can't do any better than that. Tomorrow is a new day!

Miracles can and do happen. Joel Osteen's Mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer and has currently been cancer free for 30yrs now as many others have. You deserve a miracle lbj, does God love Joel's mother any more than he does you? He listens to the cries of the faithful. I stand in that faith lifting you up as many here do.

The miracle God gave me was my life.

I went in for a check up to see how I am doing regarding the Votrient. They took blood so we will see in a few days.

I had to cut back a bit on the amount prescribed because of the side effects.
I tried to take the prescribed 800mg, but the side effects were so bad I dialed it back to 600mg. I can deal with the 600mg.

Continued prayers inbound, brother.

-Rob

Thank you.

The handwritten press release letter seems to have gone over well in the community with little blow back so far and I feel pretty good about it.

As I said earlier in this thread, speaking the truth and speaking from the heart is easiest and best policy.

Plus, another reason for the letter was to prevent aspersions being cast towards my wife and daughters in the future after I am gone because they live here, well, one daughter doesn't but you know what I mean.

There are a couple thousand hardcore fans and dozens of businesses that support the Crush, and to simply fold without proper notice and explanation was out of the question.

I have been thinking about old age the past couple of days, and even though perhaps technically I am not old age at 60, I have generally thought about death in terms of old age most of my life.

Therefore, it would seem that this twilight time I have left qualifies as my old age, albeit a bit early in terms of number of years lived.

Is that wrong?

lbj I'm still hoping for the best. There's been a pretty amazing breakthrough recently in treatment from Merck. There's a plant local to me and I met someone that works there. He was explaining the new treatment but it was way over my head. Have you heard or read anything about it? Somehow they figured out how cancer cells mask their presence from our immune system and have a way to expose them now. If there's anything I can do to get you info on this treatment please contact me and I'll do whatever I can to help.

Sure, please do get the information from him if possible and ask if it applies to renal clear cell carcinoma.

It would seem that clear cell carcinoma is a bit of an odd duck in the cancer world.
Well, not in the sense in terms of frequency, but more it terms in how it grows and the treatments therein.

quote:

Originally posted by lbj:
Therefore, it would seem that this twilight time I have left qualifies as my old age, albeit a bit early in terms of number of years lived.

Is that wrong?

No, you're certainly not wrong. How you define (and live) your life is up to you and for no one else to judge. But how you feel about your "old age" is important. How old do feel when you fire up your Mustang?

Since my dad passed away almost 4 years ago I've been thinking about how I want to live the rest of my life into "old age". Old age doesn't mean we must think of ourselves as "old". How we approach life in general is more important than the chronological years we've accumulated. For example, Mrs 'Hook claims the mileage I've accumulated makes me look more mature than my 50-ish years of age, but I still think and act like a heavily-armed, 15-year-old horn-dog. (Not sure if that's a complaint or compliment...)

Best of luck to you, lbj. I look forward to your future posts as you travel down this road. The thought and thoughtfulness you put into your writing is appreciated.

Thanks, I would hope that some of my life philosophy is viewed as thoughtful.

That is my intention.

I have been feeling slightly better physically the last couple of days and been a bit more active as well.

The lab called and the blood work came back as acceptable and apparently no need to worry about my liver enzymes and platelette or white cell count. That's good news so far.

The press release seems to have played well at the IFL and Crush Facebook sites.
The comments have been positive and nice.
I was particularly struck by one which said "great letter from a man in a difficult situation".

Obviously, I have gone public here and in the press release, so none of what I read in the way of comments would be posted if I had stayed private.
However, I do know some of the people posting comments and it's nice to read them. It is nice to read the ones from people I do not know as well.
One never truly knows what people think of us, though we think we do.
I am very happy with what I am reading.

I had an ex Crush quarterback call me yesterday and spent an hour on the phone with him. He left the Crush in less than perfect circumstances, yet he called anyway.

As I have said previously, I always wondered who I might be for this moment in time and can now say I am inside myself, the person I always wanted to be. I guess I should not have been surprised but am.
I am also surprised by the kind words and contacting of me by former associates, players and friends. Apparently I am well liked in overall sense, maybe even loved in some ways.

It is a great feeling. I have always run in many different social circles concurrently my entire life, and did so with ease because to me, the different circles have different input in what they say and do and I have always enjoyed that.
Of course, none of this was possible if the groups in those social circles did not accept me, so they had as much to do with this as I ever did. Otherwise it would not have been possible.

I never really ran my life to be popular and well liked, maybe even respected. I am just me being me.
Now, I come to find out that me being me has played well in life. This is very heartening.

I thank God for this, and wonder just what I have done in life to deserve the Lord showing me all this.

As the impartial observer, my wife tells me she is not surprised at all.

Still, I feel I do not deserve such, but there it is and I am very honored.

As I say, my priorities have changed.

It must be the time change, kind of blue today.

No, I'm not a democrat or anything. I have enough baggage to atone for already.

quote:

Originally posted by lbj:
As I say, my priorities have changed.

It must be the time change, kind of blue today.

No, I'm not a democrat or anything. I have enough baggage to atone for already.

I watched my dad go through a cancer diagnosis and ultimate end. One of things I saw in him was the burden of always trying to be optimistic and cheerful. I lived thousands of miles from him, so I did not see him often through those last years, but when the end came, I was there. My father and I share many things, and one of them is a personality that prefers to deal with things as they are, not as we want them. As such, the burden of being the realist and guiding the medical and palliative care people fell to me. After one afternoon with all the family in his room vainly trying to pump up his spirit and speak words of hope and optimism, I had the chance to be alone with him. We spoke frankly about his situation and the decisions that had to be made, and I told him I would handle whatever was necessary. Finally, I told him he no longer had to try to be cheerful for our sakes, we would be ok. He looked very relieved.

I think about your situation periodically, and I am not sure why I felt I should share that story. Your journey still has a ways to go, but maybe I connected with your comment in feeling blue. Seems pretty natural and probably a healthy feeling to have right now.

Anyway, you'll continue to be in my thoughts.