Former Carolina Panthers head coach Ron Rivera recently received the kind of news everyone dreads: he has cancer.
But when I reached out to Rivera on Thursday night via text message to send him his best wishes for recovery, the man who now coaches the NFL team in Washington looked like his usual optimism. During this text exchange, I also asked him if he had anything to say to the thousands of people who became his fans and friends during his nine years in Charlotte.
To that question, at 11:47 p.m. Rivera responded with three words.
“We have this.”
Rivera, 58, was recently diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma located in a lymph node. Washington said in a statement that Rivera had detected the cancer from a “self-care check-up”, that it was at an early stage and that it is “considered very treatable and curable”.
Rivera told ESPN, which first broke the news, that he called his players together on Thursday night to tell them he has cancer but plans to continue coaching. Washington announced that Rivera had asked the team to continue “as usual”. While he does need some time off, I guess it’s likely defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio (former Panthers defensive coordinator before his stint as NFL head coach twice) would lead. things for a while.
Support for Rivera has poured in on social media. Carolina linebacker Shaq Thompson tweeted, “Praying for Coach Ron and the Rivera family…. I send you love, know Ron is going to beat this.
Greg Olsen tweeted the former Panthers tensioner: “We love you, coach. You have so many people in your corner. You have always looked out for us. Now it’s our turn.
In 2015, I did a long interview with Rivera about his older brother Mickey, who died a few days earlier, at age 57, from a two-year battle with pancreatic cancer. Rivera comes from a family of four brothers and has remained close to them all. He had given a eulogy for Mickey. He had missed two of the first three days of Panthers training camp to return to the West Coast for Mickey’s funeral. Before that, he had seen the ravages of the disease up close.
Mickey’s death had made him realize, Rivera told me then, that if you were healthy the rest of your life could be mended. And if you don’t have your health, he said, you fight hard for it, and you do it with grace.
“Mickey was so selfless,” Rivera said. “He was always worried about everyone. I asked him once, “How are you? It must be hard. And he said: ‘I really hope people don’t feel sorry for me. Ron, when I go to have my chemotherapy, I see young children there, and I know some of them have no future. Some of them will never be able to live a life like me. I have lived a great life. ”
Rivera still leads a good life, even though Lord knows he has some problems to solve. The former NFL linebacker hasn’t even coached a game for Washington yet, but he has already earned a graduate degree in crisis management.
In the eight months since her hiring, Washington has decided to change her controversial nickname. The Washington Post reported on the toxic culture inside the team’s football offices from 2006-19 – before Rivera arrived – with 15 women who previously worked for the team saying they were sexually harassed. Rivera has also had to deal with several personnel crises with current and former players.
It looked so bad from the outside that I had also texted Rivera several weeks ago, asking if he had any regrets about taking the job. Rivera, after all, had been the NFL’s most popular workout product after Panthers owner David Tepper fired him in December. The Panthers’ winningest coach of all time could have become the head coach of several other teams instead of Washington.
“No regrets,” Rivera replied. “I can’t wait to take on the challenge of improving a 3-13 team. I want to build a sustainable winning culture, in all its facets. “
Now the coach has another challenge, which must be beaten before the others are tackled.
Rivera spoke of “missed opportunities” after every loss for the Panthers. It was his catch-all phrase for whatever went wrong and became a common joke among reporters who regularly covered the team. Rivera was joke-wise and never had the wit to laugh at himself – a welcome trait in a business where so many NFL coaches act as if what they are doing is on par with the men and women trying to develop a COVID-19 vaccine.
At her farewell press conference in December, Rivera had a t-shirt made that read “Missed Opportunities” and posted it from the podium.
Cancer, for Rivera, will not be a missed opportunity. I have no doubts that with the help of his doctors and his family he will beat him. More than that, he will use this as an awareness raising opportunity.
Rivera has a knack for making others feel better when they try to console him; the same was true when he lost his job in Charlotte. The coach understands what he is dealing with and he will not compromise by fighting it.
“We have this,” he wrote. And there is no doubt that he does.
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