One in seven American men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in his lifetime. The average age of those stricken is 66 years old. This spring, at age 66, Bruce DeHaven joined those ranks.
On Sunday, DeHaven will join a far, far more exclusive fraternity of men to coach in five Super Bowls.
Upon receiving his diagnosis this spring, DeHaven did the one thing he's done for the last 36 years: coaching football.
"The only one I really had to convince was my wife," DeHaven told the San Jose Mercury-News. "My kids, of course, wanted me to keep coaching because they like going to the games.
"When I started talking about this, my doctor says, 'I think he wants to keep working. I don't know if I'll be able to talk him out of that.'"
From four straight Super Bowl losses as the special teams coordinator of the Buffalo Bills, a dozen-year tenure ended when the Bills came out on the wrong end of the Music City Miracle, DeHaven has lived a life most coaches can only dream of. The Mercury-News did a wonderful job recapping the path taken, and lives touched, that got him to Santa Clara.