Coach battles teams on the field, cancer off

Last Friday, the Colony Knights triumphed with a 32-28 homecoming win over Palmer. But they also celebrated a more personal triumph — their coach being declared clear of cancer.

Cancer never fully goes away, it is just a matter of how badly it comes back. Colony head coach Brian McIntosh has been battling a brain tumor since last April, when he went to the hospital after he felt “something weird” while he was teaching. That “something” turned out to be a brain mass, as he was diagnosed.

This year is also his first year coaching varsity football, and no amount of cancer could stop him from giving his all to the team, which has been supportive of him throughout the ordeal. He continued to coach through his treatment and his surgery in July, which left him with a 4-inch scar on his scalp. When his cancer was cleared two weeks ago, it was just in time for homecoming, but he will still have to undergo chemotherapy every four weeks and get checked for signs of return every three months.

The team, although already tight-knit, has been brought closer together as a result of McIntosh’s diagnosis. They view it as just another one of the adversities that they can overcome together, as much as winning their homecoming for the third year in a row. A deeper message is gleaned from the ordeal as well, though. As senior Mitchell Slater said, it has brought them to realize that, “It is day by day; tomorrow is not guaranteed.”

Coach McIntosh seems to be facing it the same way, and his life seems little changed from his Montana childhood. He is still a passionate football fan who has coached Colony football for the past six years, and is adapting well to his new role as Colony’s varsity head coach. His favorite college football teams are the Montana Grizzlies — he grew up in the area, and Penn State. Of Penn State’s head coach Joe Paterno, McIntosh says he has “a lot of respect,” as he does for the Penn State fans as well.

He liked their idea of dressing in all white for home games so much that he introduced the tradition to Colony Super Fans for this homecoming. He cites the way that the support seems to double in the dark when the floodlights shine on all the white as the reason for the whiteout, and Colony students fully embraced it.

The whiteout could be a metaphor for the Colony football team’s entire season. In the darkness of McIntosh’s diagnosis, the support of the entire school seemed to multiply, just like at Friday’s football game.