CCU coach Gary Gilmore’s cancer diagnosis has changed. Why he’s back on the Grand Strand
Though Coastal Carolina’s baseball team isn’t scheduled to play another game for more than 10 months, it has its leader back.
Head coach Gary Gilmore is back on the Grand Strand, undergoing his cancer treatments locally, and actively leading his program for what would have been a 25th season had it not been canceled because of the coronavirus.
“Right now I have a decent quality of life even through this stuff at this point, so I’m very optimistic I can handle this and do this even if it’s a lifetime deal,” Gilmore said. “I feel great, I feel as good as I have felt in a long time.”
Gilmore, 62, discovered from preliminary tests in late January that he has a large mass on his liver, and he was expecting to be treated solely for that after being accepted into a treatment program at the renowned MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston in mid-February.
But his diagnosis has changed.
Another month of further testing revealed the source of the cancer was a spot in the pancreas, and his diagnosis was changed from liver cancer to pancreatic neuroendocrine cancer, which led to a change in his primary cancer specialist at MD Anderson.
The cancer develops from the abnormal growth of hormone-producing cells in the pancreas, and Gilmore said the tumor secretes hormones into the blood stream that can cause further complications in his body.
“As of today it’s not a curable-type cancer, but it’s a manageable-type cancer if all goes well,” Gilmore said. “… They were very positive with me based on my physical condition and all the things they studied that I could be a guy that could fight this thing for a while and hopefully, God willing, have a good many years of quality of life.
“Chances are they find something that cures this type of cancer completely before it were to ever even get me.”
Gilmore said surgery to remove the tumor isn’t a consideration at this point, but he doesn’t believe it is entirely ruled out if treatments are successful.
He is 10 days into three months of treatments consisting of 14 days of chemotherapy followed by 14 days off. He is scheduled to return to Houston on June 10 for a checkup, then likely another three months of the same 14-day cycles.
He wasn’t sure what was going to be required for his treatments as recently as a month ago, so being at his home in the Litchfield area of Pawleys Island during treatments has been uplifting.
“Nothing against Houston and being in a hotel, but man I’m at home, I get to see my wife, I get to see my grandkids. This is where I want to be,” Gilmore said. “… I’m so very happy to be here. I can’t imagine having had to stay out there. To be honest with you, that would have been a tough one to not put a damper on my spirit. That would have drug me down.”
He said doctors hope to stunt the growth of the cancer over three months, then shrink it over the next three months.
If that goes as planned, the strategy will be reevaluated in September. Radiation is not part of his treatment plan for the next six months.
Gilmore said the pancreatic tumor is small and very slow-growing, and has likely existed for several years.
“Getting that under control is one of the major steps, and starting to shrink this thing by June should really help that,” Gilmore said. “A lot of the side-effect symptoms of this will begin to subside, according to what they told me, then we’re just fighting the cancer and not other things this tumor is creating for us to have to deal with as well.
“… Right now it comes down to — does my body take and use this stuff and really help kick this cancer’s butt? A positive attitude and exercise and doing all the things I can do to control what I can will be a major benefit hopefully.”
Gilmore left the team after just two games in mid-February and associate head coach and 17-year CCU assistant Kevin Schnall took over head coaching duties. He led the team to an 11-5 record in his absence before the season was cut short on March 12 because of the coronavirus pandemic.
With the spread of COVID-19, Gilmore has been self-isolating with his wife with the exception of his chemo sessions at his oncologist’s office at Coastal Cancer Center and visits near his home to see his children and grandchildren, which include kids ages four weeks, 18 months and six years.
“The only place I go is if I go across the street in the car to see my children and my grandchildren,” Gilmore said. “They’re all quarantined and working from home as well. We’ve got tiny grandkids, so everybody is very observant of the rules and social distancing and the whole 9 yards, so I feel confident there.”
Gilmore said because of his family, his behavior wouldn’t change if his health wasn’t already compromised.
“I think I would respect their lives enough that there’s no chance I would do anything any different. I would be as paranoid as I am right now,” he said. “I’m doing everything I can to protect myself as well as not bringing it back home by accident.”
Gilmore has been relying on his strong faith since learning of his cancer diagnosis.
“I believe wholeheartedly it’s going to work,” Gilmore said. “I’m leaning on my faith heavily that there is a reason this whole thing happened, and I’m going to come out of it in a better spot in my faith and use it for the rest of my life to do things that I want to do in the name of God and promote him.”
In his 25 seasons at CCU, Gilmore has led the Chants to an NCAA Division I national championship in 2016 and to a record of 974-507-2. In his 31-year head coaching career, he has amassed a record of 1,227-609-4, giving him the sixth-most wins among active Division I coaches, including 253 wins in six seasons at USC Aiken from 1990-95.
Gilmore, who played at CCU in 1979-80, was named the unanimous 2016 national coach of the year, is a two-time American Baseball Coaches Association Atlantic Region Coach of the Year (2005, ‘16), and was inducted into the USC Aiken Athletics Hall of Fame in 2014.
“I’m hell bent to beat this thing,” said Gilmore, who praised the work of his coaching staff over the past couple months. “I don’t want the last game I coached to be this past March. I think that’s what I should still be striving to do at this point.”
This story was originally published April 2, 2020 at 9:58 PM.
