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Coldwater coach puts off chemo for football title run

In this 2009 file photo: Coldwater coach John Reed holds up a diagram during practice for the upcoming game against Alter. Fast forward to to 2009: Some five weeks ago, Reed was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. Although told there’s a 33 percent survival rate, he put off most treatments until his team finished its season.

Staff photo by Jan Underwood In this 2009 file photo: Coldwater coach John Reed holds up a diagram during practice for the upcoming game against Alter. Fast forward to to 2009: Some five weeks ago, Reed was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. Although told there’s a 33 percent survival rate, he put off most treatments until his team finished its season.

Coldwather coach John Reed (from left) talks with linebacker Adam Homan and running back Tony Harlamert after practice as they prepare for their game against Alter in this Nov. 2008 file photo. The 13-1 Cavaliers play Youngstown Ursuline for the Division V state title, Dec. 4, 2009 in Canton.

Staff photo by Jan Underwood Coldwather coach John Reed (from left) talks with linebacker Adam Homan and running back Tony Harlamert after practice as they prepare for their game against Alter in this Nov. 2008 file photo. The 13-1 Cavaliers play Youngstown Ursuline for the Division V state title, Dec. 4, 2009 in Canton.

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In this November 2008 file photo: Coldwater coach John Reed holds up a diagram during practice for the upcoming game against Alter. The 13-1 Cavaliers play Youngstown Ursuline for the Division V state title, Dec. 4, 2009 in Canton.

Staff photo by Jan Underwood In this November 2008 file photo: Coldwater coach John Reed holds up a diagram during practice for the upcoming game against Alter. The 13-1 Cavaliers play Youngstown Ursuline for the Division V state title, Dec. 4, 2009 in Canton.

By Tom Archdeacon, Staff Writer Updated 3:01 PM Friday, December 4, 2009

COLDWATER - There’s not been a more gripping story in high school football this season than the one playing out right now at Coldwater High.

The 13-1 Cavaliers play Youngstown Ursuline for the Division V state title today, Dec. 4, in Canton. But along with all the glory that’s come in this playoff run, there’s also been increasing pain ... and worry.

The longer Coldwater has kept its football season alive, the longer coach John Reed has prolonged receiving the medical treatment necessary to keep himself alive.

Some five weeks ago, Reed was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. Although told there’s a 33 percent survival rate, he put off most treatments until his team finished its season.

On Monday, he’ll begin six weeks of radiation and chemotherapy treatments. Surgery will follow in February. Meanwhile, he’s been dealing with increasing pain, friends say, though he’s not one to bring it up.

If you know John Reed, none of this surprises you. He’s as principled and disciplined of a coach as you’ll find.

“It would be easy for us to say this is a storybook tale, a made-for-a-movie script — one of those ‘let’s win one for the coach’ deals — but John won’t have it,” Coldwater Athletic Director Eric Goodwin said. “He wants it kept about the kids.”

That was difficult to do last Friday night immediately after Coldwater had beaten Hamler Patrick Henry 35-24 in a state semifinal game in Findlay. During the postgame confab, Reed was bumped to the ground by a player and landed, as Goodwin put it, “on one of the sorest parts of his body.”

As Reed lay on the turf, attended to by paramedics, a hush fell over the stadium.

He is a coaching pillar in the state. He has 283 victories, 168 of them — against just 30 losses — coming at Coldwater, which hopes to win its third state title in five years with him.

“He’s put Coldwater on the map,” Goodwin said.

Reed eventually walked off the field under his own power Friday night and joined the team in the dressing room.

Goodwin said Reed has kept his players informed of his condition and hasn’t missed practices.

“The football has really helped me not to concentrate on the pain,” Reed told Scott Brinkman, a Coldwater teacher who also writes for the Lima News. “If all I was doing was sitting around thinking about the pain, I would go nuts. Just being with the coaches and the kids ... that’s what gets you through difficult times.”

Reed — a high school guidance counselor who is very active in his church — knows the battle that lies ahead.

“It isn’t doom and gloom for me at all,” he said. “This is a win-win situation for me. If God decides to heal me, then he will be glorified. If God decides not to heal me in the way that we think of being healed, then I will be glorified with my savior.”

After last Friday’s game, Patrick Henry coach Bill Inselmann spoke for a lot of people:

“There’s not a better Christian man and coach than John Reed, and he’s battling for his life right now. ... If there’s a team that’s going to win state instead of us, I want it to be Coldwater.”

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