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Wyche's new battle: heart problems

By JOHN ROMANO

© St. Petersburg Times,
published August 3, 2001

He greets each morning with a fistful of pills. He closes each day in a similar way. In between, Sam Wyche tries to forget that his life depends on the efficiency of a pharmaceutical drawer.

"I feel fine," Wyche says by phone, as his car winds through the Great Smoky Mountains and his 2-year-old grandson bellows in the backseat. "It's not like I'm slowing down in any way, shape or form."

Perhaps it is true what they say about the human spirit. One can never tell what is going on in another's heart.

For Sam Wyche's heart is failing him. It may, in fact, be killing him.

The former Buccaneers coach is suffering from cardiomyopathy. It is a disease of the heart for which there is no cure. It often can be controlled by medication, but the treatment holds no guarantees. His condition has become serious enough that friends are urging him to apply for a heart transplant.

"My thoughts right now are that I'm not going to get a transplant," Wyche said. "I'll take my medication and if it doesn't work. . ."

He allows the silence to complete his thought.

Wyche, 56, has known this for the past 18 months. For the first 12, he kept it hidden from his parents. Until recently, he kept it from friends too.

He continues riding his Harley. He continues working around his South Carolina farm. In a few weeks, he will resume his career as an NFL analyst for CBS. And soon, he will welcome a third grandchild into his life.

This is not the time for reflection.

No maudlin trips through his past, or mediations on a doomed future. He is sick, so he deals with it. In typical Wyche style.

"If it gets worse, I'll get my papers in order," Wyche said. "My kids already are showing an interest in their inheritance. They're telling me not to take too many trips because they don't want me spending all of my money."

This is the Wyche way. A little charm, a little humor and a blind spot when it comes to his weaknesses. It is a style that has, for the most part, served him well. Eight years as an NFL quarterback. Five as an assistant coach. Twelve as a head coach. And a Super Bowl appearance in each capacity.

In Wyche's world, there were those who believed in him and the rest who were wrong.

Passion never met a more compatible partner. He railed when he was right and railed a little more when, perhaps, he was not so right.

You never doubted your place in Wyche's world because he demanded you work alongside him or take a hike. His was the faith of a true believer, no matter what his beliefs were on a given day.

He talked off the cuff, which made sense, since his heart was worn on his sleeve.

It is still Wyche's world, but it is getting harder to recognize.

The voice roars no more and the heart has let him down.

It began with bouts of breathlessness. He felt it while working out at Gold's Gym. He felt it after climbing the stairs to a CBS booth at the 2000 Daytona 500. When he felt it while unloading a truck at the farm, he had his wife, Jane, take him to the emergency room.

Soon they would discover enlarged lymph nodes and clots in his lungs. They feared cancer and scheduled surgery to take some tissue from his lymph nodes. The results were negative but, during the procedure, a doctor accidentally cut the nerve to Wyche's left vocal cord.

For months, he was unable to talk above a whisper and unable to work for CBS. A specialist at Vanderbilt eventually was able to partially restore his voice. He can talk with a normal tone, but no higher. In deference, CBS will put Wyche in a three-man booth this season and experiment with raising the volume on his microphone so he can be heard above the crowd noise.

The problems with his vocal cord would eventually seem like a minor annoyance. During this time, Wyche's heart disease was diagnosed.

Doctors told him it began as a virus. A germ transmitted, perhaps, by a stranger's sneeze. The germ would be neutralized by most immune systems. It was not by Wyche's. His heart quickly began to deteriorate.

This is not the time for anger, although Wyche occasionally has given in to that urge.

"It makes me angry to think that I never smoked, I was never a heavy drinker, I was never overweight," Wyche said. "All that sweat that I left on Bayshore Boulevard, all the dust in my eyes, all the no-see-ums that I had to swat away from my face. What was all that for?"

He no longer is able to fly his cherished twin-engine Baron airplane. The Federal Aviation Authority considers him a risk because of his health.

A pacemaker has been installed to regulate his slowing heartbeat. He emphasizes that his lifestyle has not changed dramatically, but concedes he sometimes lacks energy.

A recent medical test indicated that his heart was growing less and less efficient, a warning signal that a transplant might soon be necessary. Wyche said there was some debate whether the test was reliable, so he had more advanced tests run this week in Cincinnati.

He awaits the results.

"It is a reality check," Wyche said. "And maybe subconsciously I'm more appreciative of the things around me. But people who have this disease can live a normal life for a very long time with the right medication. I don't want to give anyone the impression that I'm on my death bed.

"At some point, I might have to make the decision on whether or not to get on the transplant list. But I'm not there right now.

"I don't know, maybe this makes sense to a lot of people who watched me coaching on the sideline. I wasn't getting enough oxygen to the brain."

And then he laughs, inviting you too to make light of his world.

This is not the time for pity or remorse.

For Sam Wyche, this is the time to live.

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