FOOTBALL IS THERAPY

PALMER — The Colony Knights have entered the final stretch of two-a-days.

It’s a typical time for fatigue to set in. Long days of football practice crammed into a short span as teams prepare for the first week of the regular season.

And Colony head coach Brian McIntosh is tired.

After spending six seasons as an assistant on the Colony staff, McIntosh is hours away from his first game as head coach. McIntosh has been preparing for his debut since he was officially promoted to head coach in January. But McIntosh couldn’t prepare for the news he was given just a few months later.

Shortly after suffering a focal seizure during a class in May, the Colony coach and teacher was diagnosed with an anaplastic astrocytoma grade three brain tumor.

Now as McIntosh, a husband and father of two, watches his players battle on the field, he’s fighting a battle of his own.

“This week’s been pretty tough,” McIntosh said Wednesday evening. “It’s starting to catch up to me. Two-a-days and all that stuff, I’m pretty winded.”

For about five weeks, McIntosh has worked through regular doses of radiation and chemotherapy. It’s an intense regimen to fight an aggressive cancer. Wednesday night, McIntosh was facing eight more days in the current cycle.

The first week wasn’t bad, he said. He managed to work his way through treatment and the side effects — hair loss and a dramatic drop in energy. But he’s maintaining, fueled by the inspiration of family, friends and football.

The discovery

In early May, McIntosh, a U.S. history teacher at Colony High, was with his last class of the day. McIntosh asked a student a question.

“I couldn’t give him the right answer,” McIntosh said. “I paused. I couldn’t get it out.”

That night, McIntosh went to the emergency room. He’d suffered a focal seizure, but wasn’t sure why.

He thought maybe it was a stroke. The trip to the emergency room was the first of countless visits with doctors as McIntosh searched for an explanation.

McIntosh described it as a whirlwind time as he went from test to test. Doctors eventually found a mass fixed to McIntosh’s brain.

A biopsy was performed. McIntosh said, at first, doctors thought he had a grade two, slow-growing cancer. But he would soon find out it was in fact a grade three tumor.

Mayo clinic

McIntosh was given his options by his doctors in Alaska — surgery followed by radiation and chemotherapy, just treatment or nothing at all.

Less than two weeks after his biopsy in mid-May, McIntosh and his wife Stacey were at the Mayo Clinic, a world-renowned facility in Rochester, Minn.

McIntosh would undergo a multitude of tests, including a three-hour MRI, and eventual surgery.

On June 2, McIntosh was in the operating room. It was an open brain surgery, he was awake for much of the procedure. Surgeons performed a variety of tests throughout, brain mapping, aimed to draw specific responses.

As surgeons performed the second to last of the more than 20 tests, McIntosh suffered a grand maul seizure. McIntosh said the surgeon had performed thousands of these procedures and had seen a seizure the magnitude of his only once before.

After he went into seizure, doctors had to put McIntosh’s head into a frame and insert screws.

Those scars are in addition to the 42 staples that were a result of the surgery.

Surgeons were able to remove more than 90 percent of the mass during the lengthy procedure, and McIntosh recovered fairly quickly.

Football is therapy

McIntosh’s speech was affected by the surgery.

“They got a little too close to my language part of the brain,” he said. “It’s definitely something I’ve still got to deal with, but I’m better at it.”

His short-term memory has also been affected, McIntosh said.

“I have a hard time remembering little things,” McIntosh said. “I’ve got to carry a lot of lists.”

The last three months have reminded McIntosh to think of what’s important, such as his wife and two children.

“The first night we found out, it put everything into perspective,” McIntosh said. “It’s life-changing. We went home from the doctor not knowing if it would be a week, month, six months.”

While family is at the top of his list, teaching, coaching and football also rank high for McIntosh.

When McIntosh returned home and stepped back into the weight room for the first time, he felt comfortable alongside his players.

McIntosh was still having problems with his speech, but that was OK.

“It felt like home away from home,” McIntosh said.

McIntosh said football is certainly helping him through this process, and a big reason for that is the group of players he’s coaching, especially the seniors.

“This senior group is a real special group,” McIntosh said. “I have real close ties with them.”

McIntosh has not only coached these athletes, but taught most of them in his history classes. His teaching career at Colony High started when these seniors were freshmen.

“I’ve been there since their freshman year, watching them grown and develop,” McIntosh said.

Setting goals

When McIntosh was hit with life-altering news, he aimed to tackle it head-on. Rather than shying away from things that are important to him, he set goals in his life.

McIntosh wanted to be ready for the season. He wanted to teach.

“That’s my passion,” McIntosh.

He wanted to have time with his wife and children.

He wanted to be back at Colony High for the All-Alaska Football Camp in mid-June and the Champions Football Camp at Chugiak High.

So far, he’s met his goals.

Contact Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.