Question 9: Is there anyone more excited to be on the sidelines than Mike June?
The high school season begins in less than two weeks. Leading up to preseason games, the Times answers 10 Pressing Questions facing Pinellas schools.
By Times Staff Writer
Published August 27, 2003
"Probably not."
Those are the words straight from a man who dealt with far more this offseason than how to replace a few lost starters.
Mike June beat leukemia.
The Palm Harbor coach was diagnosed near the end of the 2002 football season and missed the Hurricanes' final two games to begin chemotherapy treatment at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa. He went home after 50 days, sleeping in his own bed just before Christmas, then began four months of off-and-on chemo treatment Jan. 1. Amazingly, when spring practice rolled around June was coaching. "It was so nice to get back to it in May and be able to go through the jamboree and do all that stuff," June said. "It interrupted last year, the whole leukemia thing."
Interrupted? Now there's a coach for you, brushing off a life-threatening condition like it was a lightning delay in a game. But June does admit the ordeal has had an impact.
"There's nothing I notice, but the kids do," June said. "If a kid gets in trouble and it's during a class, there is no chew-out. It's just, "Hey, I don't have time for that. You're going to do what you want to do.'
"A lot of little things like that, they're noticing."
Of course, when you're the head guy at PHU it's sometimes best to not sweat the small stuff. PHU under June has won five games in four seasons and has never had a winning season. June doesn't have the attention span for excuses.
"They know that I haven't given up, my coaches haven't given up," June said. Hopefully the players are listening. And if that's not motivation enough, they should just look to the sideline.
"He was faced with the most severe thing in the world and he recuperated from it," senior quarterback Mike Kampel said. "He beat that."
