By Harry Minium
It was December of 2018 and Jeff Jones was at his wit's end. Jones has prostate cancer and even after surgery and a strong round of radiation, it persisted.
Doctors could not cure it, they said, but could control it with medicine. The meds, Jones said, "were driving me nuts"
He was plagued with fatigue and mood swings and had many, many sleepless nights.
"At first I tried to fight it and force myself to go to sleep," he said. "It never worked. It would stress me out."
Eventually, he just went with the flow. "I'd read, listen to music, write emails or texts," he said, which explained why on occasion, I'd get a text from him at 3 a.m.
"By the way, there is some really bad TV on late at night, so I watched a lot of game film at 2-3-4-5 in the morning.
"I learned essentially how to not sleep for a day and get through the next day."
He would sleep the next night, but then the pattern would repeat itself. He felt his body getting weaker, his frustration levels getting higher, so he went to his oncologist, Dr. Mark Fleming, and asked for relief.
"I'm not sure, the way things are going, that I'm going to make it through the season," Jones told him.
Fleming agreed to stop the meds, noting they were going to take a break from them in June anyway.
But he warned Jones that his Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) likely would rise again, indicating the cancer was growing again.
It was, he reminded Jones, a particularly aggressive form of prostate cancer.
What's happened since isn't exactly a miracle, but it's pretty damned close.
Jones has been tested every three months since, and in 21 months since going off his meds, his PSA hasn't risen an iota.
It's a 0.00, and for a prostate cancer patient, that's the equivalent of scoring 100 points in a game.
Having been in Jones' shoes, I was not surprised when he said it took months for the side effects to subside. Six months after I last took a shot that is crudely known as "chemical castration" (not the same med as Jones) I was still a mess. Angry. Petulant. Basically, I was a baby.
Jones was OK in a few months.
So, question is, did getting off the meds have anything to do with ODU's remarkable second half of the 2018-2019 season?
No telling, but clearly, the Monarchs had one of the most memorable seasons in decades.
After getting off to a poor start, ODU won 21 of 24 games and sealed up the Conference USA regular-season crown. Then the Monarchs went on a magical ride in the C-USA tournament in Frisco, Texas, beating Louisiana Tech 57-56, UAB 61-59 and then Western Kentucky 62-56 in the championship game.
Jones famously buried his head into his towel and cried following the championship game. After choking up again in the post-game press conference, hugged his wife, Danielle Jones, who is his partner, his leader, his friend, his advocate, his alter ego in his fight against cancer.
She researched the disease, talked to doctors and sent Jones to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, one of the finest cancer centers in the world.
"I don't know what I would have done without her," Jones said.
Of his 0.00 number, Jones kind of shrugged his shoulders when I asked him what it meant to him.
"I don't think any of us would have predicted this, but I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth," he said.
"Other people are making a big deal out of it. I don't know why it doesn't mean as much to me. I feel good. I'm grateful. I guess the treatment I received was effective."
But as every cancer patient knows: "We're all aware it can come back. At any time. In the interim, I'm very happy that it hasn't."
I've known Jones a long time and when he says happy, he means it. He's as happy as I've ever seen him.
He's grown a pretty thick beard (it's coming off before the first game at Chartway Arena, he said) and even when he's lecturing players, he's smiling.
He signed five newcomers ready to help this season and remarkably, has finished recruiting for 2021-22. I can't talk about specific players until they have signed, but it's a talented class that bodes well for ODU.
So far, there is no word on whether men's and women's basketball will join fall sports in being sidelined because of the pandemic, but Jones says if this team gets to play, it's going to make a lot of noise. The Monarchs should be much better than last year's team, which finished 13-19.
Jones is also optimistic that basketball will be played, though he does not think it will start until after Thanksgiving.
"College basketball is more united from a leadership standpoint than football," he said in what was a huge understatement.
That's because college basketball has a czar and college football doesn't. NCAA Senior Vice President of Basketball Dan Gavitt has led all three divisions of college basketball well and everyone seems to agree on starting practicing later this month and the season in November.
The Football Bowl Subdivision is run by 10 conferences and they can't seem to agree on much of anything. Six conferences are playing, and four, joined by two independents and ODU, are not.
When, where and who ODU basketball would play remains unknown. Season tickets aren't yet on sale because we don't yet know the schedule.
"I'm optimistic we're going to play basketball," Athletic Director Wood Selig said on a Zoom conference call Wednesday morning with his staff.
"Dan is a tremendous leader," Jones said. "I'm happy we have him out there trying to figure this out, trying to build a consensus.
"I think all of the commissioners, athletic directors and presidents understand the significance of the NCAA tournament for a lot of reasons."
Jones acknowledges it's still a work in progress, that so much remains to be decided.
"At this point, I believe basketball will be played, but I don't know what that will look like yet," he said.
"That's what I keep preaching to our players. We have to continue to be adaptable and flexible. We can't allow ourselves to get too frustrated when there's not an answer forthcoming."
As for his PSA score, well, he leaves the worrying to his wife, whom friends call Danee.
"I'm not naive, I'm not thinking I'm out of the woods," he said. "But at the same thing, I'm not going to let it control my life."
Contact Minium: hminium@odu.edu
It May Not Be a Miracle But it’s Close: Jeff Jones’ Prostate Cancer Has Been Dormant for Nearly Two Years
