Dave Joerger returns from his cancer battle with a new perspective on life: ‘It’s given me a great appreciation’

Joerger is back with the Sixers after being diagnosed with head and neck cancer late last year, making a return that Doc Rivers called "a miracle."

Sixers assistant coach Dave Joerger, center, stands during player introductions before a game between the Sixers and Pacers.Read moreHEATHER KHALIFA / Staff Photographer

by Gina Mizell

Published April 12, 2022, 5:00 a.m. ET

Dave Joerger is tired of slathering pancakes with butter and syrup. And of seeking out soft-textured proteins such as eggs and fish. And of downing scoops of mashed potatoes.

It’s still difficult for Joerger to eat and swallow, making every meal and snack feel like a workout with the goal of collecting calories instead of burning them. But it sure beats the feeding tube the 76ers’ lead assistant coach had hooked to his stomach for weeks.

That was required while Joerger underwent radiation and chemotherapy for Stage 1 head and neck cancer beginning late last year. His overwhelmingly hopeful prognosis so far has unfolded and become reality, as he returned to the Sixers in early February after completing treatment. Joerger continues to steadily regain his strength.

Sixers head coach Doc Rivers calls it a “miracle” that Joerger has returned to coaching this season. But any interaction with his team — the emails and text messages, the game film in his Dropbox, the occasional socially distanced visits to the practice facility — filled Joerger emotionally while enduring “miserable” physical pain and mental strain. He now steps into the Sixers’ postseason action as an inspiration to his team, and with renewed perspective on his job and his life.

“Where I’ve been, it runs the gamut,” Joerger told The Inquirer by phone last week. “There’s times you feel, ‘This is not going to stop me. There’s nothing that can stop me. I’ve got such a great support system,’ and then there’s times you just don’t know if you can go on anymore. Physically, mentally, it’s like, ‘This hurts.’ It’s given me a great appreciation for all the gifts and all the things that we have been given. ...

“Should it really take me getting cancer to realize all that? I feel like I’m pretty humble and I’ve always had an appreciation and a gratitude, but not certainly to the level of, ‘Wow, I have it good as a human being.’”

Joerger, 48, was in his Toronto hotel room the afternoon of the Sixers’ Oct. 4 preseason game against the Raptors when he received a text message from Dr. Dean Klug, his ear, nose and throat physician based in a suburb of Memphis, Tenn.

“He’s like, ‘Hey, we found something. You need to call me right away,’” Joerger recalled. “That’s when your heart sinks.”

It was the result of a new test on a swollen lymph node that, in a scan about a year earlier, had come back clean. But when the bump on Joerger’s neck never got smaller, he asked for it to be reexamined. His gut feeling was correct.

Within a couple hours, Joerger was on the phone with Dr. David Cognetti at Jefferson Health’s Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center. Joerger’s first question: “How am I supposed to go out there and do my job tonight?”

“You need to hold onto, at this point, what we know,” Cognetti told Joerger, “that you’re fortunate where we caught this, that you are going to live a long life, and you are going to coach again.”

After arriving at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena, Joerger pulled Rivers and head athletic trainer Kevin Johnson into a room to share his diagnosis. In the coming days and weeks, he notified front-office personnel and ownership. Joerger underwent the first two weeks of a seven-week radiation cycle while still working. But the Sixers’ longest road trip of the season — a six-game jaunt out West — coincided with an uptick in the intensity of Joerger’s treatment.

Following the Sixers’ Nov. 13 loss at Indiana, he told a full locker room he would be stepping away. He felt relieved to get the news off his chest, and assured those concerned that he had a 90% chance at recovery. He was also moved by how many people shared how cancer has previously impacted their own circles of family and friends.

“All of a sudden, whatever just happened [in the game] within five minutes ago is no longer as important,” Joerger said. " … I told the guys, ‘I’m going to be OK. But I think we all know that it affects the people around us, so just pray for my family.’”

At Jefferson Health, Joerger received morning radiation five days per week and chemotherapy once a week. Then, he would return home to lay in bed or on the couch, passing the hours between medication doses by binge-watching Yellowstone and other television series.

The treatment had a cumulative effect that wore Joerger down. He was physically unable to speak for about two weeks, responding to phone calls with a text message saying that he could only communicate through typed words. Wife Kimberly, whom Joerger called a “saint,” ground up his pills because of his inability to swallow. He had a stretch when his brain got “really foggy” that he still struggles to remember. And the COVID-19 omicron variant surge at that time was dangerous for Joerger because, as an immunocompromised person, “had I gotten COVID, I’d have been a real hot mess,” he said.

Joerger’s body even took an unexpectedly scary turn when, after finishing treatment in mid-December, he landed in the hospital for six days because he was not getting enough nutrients from the feeding tube.

“It really kind of hit home, like, this is pretty serious, bro,” Joerger said. " … You say to yourself, ‘What if they said I did have one year to live? How would you live? When that mindset kind of starts coming in, then you say, ‘Let me shore up some areas where I’ve always said I need to be better. I’m going to work on these kinds of things.’ You sit there at my house and you try to do that.”

Yet the flood of supportive messages — whose senders ranged from sportscaster and former basketball coach Dick Vitale (who was also going through his own cancer treatment) to family and friends without famous names but who are deeply connected to Joerger — lifted his spirits. Rivers knew Joerger was feeling better when he received a joke or email, and believed it was valuable for Sixers players to be reminded that real life exists outside of the NBA. When Joerger felt up for it, he would get fresh air on outdoor walks and pop into the Sixers’ practice facility for quick visits.

“Whatever they gave me was far more than whatever I gave them,” Joerger said of the staff and players. “So I hope I didn’t wear them out. … If I went in to see the guys, I’d have to sit apart, but it filled me up. It made me feel so good.”

When Joerger was healthy enough to return to everyday coaching, he did not want a spectacle. He initially could not unleash a booming voice to be heard over music or bouncing balls at the facility. But he has gradually taken on more responsibility, including running the offense on the practice floor. During Sunday’s regular-season finale against Detroit, Joerger conversed with Rivers on the bench, huddled with him and fellow assistants Sam Cassell and Jamie Young during timeouts, and high-fived players as they checked out of the game.

He has also given himself the grace to take extra catnaps that still feel like a “deep coma.” And he is trying to regain the 40 pounds he lost during treatment, even though his taste buds have not quite returned to normal. He most misses ranch dressing, which he used as a dip for “everything” but “tastes not very good to me right now. It kills me.”

“It’s powerful when you see him,” starting forward Tobias Harris said. “When he came back, he was kind of working his way [back] with his energy. You could see him, day by day, feeling better. … He’s taken some huge strides from the day he first came back, from the day that we learned what he was going through.

“It’s really inspiring to see that type of process. The way he’s handled it, just how strong he is as a person, yeah, it’s big-time.”

It hit Joerger while riding the elevator at the Sixers’ team hotel in Indianapolis last week that he was back in the place where he revealed his diagnosis with his full team and the public. Coincidentally, the next stop on their final road trip of the regular season was Toronto, where his life had privately changed a few weeks before that public disclosure. He will be back in the city next week, when the Sixers’ first-round series against the Raptors is being played in the middle of head and neck cancer awareness month.

During the Sixers’ postseason action, Joerger wants “to be able to give more, because I have more” than when he first rejoined his team. He will undergo checkups every six months and, eventually, every year. Though he is not quite comfortable with the term “cancer survivor,” he is grateful the doctors “feel that they’ve got it” and for the humanity shown throughout his treatment and recovery. This experience has also made him think deeper about those with much greater hardships, such as hunger and war, and has connected him to those who have shared stories of their own cancer battles.

“There’s a lot more of those people than you realize,” Joerger said. “You see the statistics, but I think we just become numb to that until you look somebody in the eye and say, ‘Yeah, I went through that 30 years ago,’ [or] ‘Yeah, I had a feeding tube,’ [or] ‘Yeah, I got a tattoo to commemorate the date I finished my treatment.’

“It’s very powerful, and it’s not something you think of, because why would you? You don’t have cancer. I think that’s one thing that I’ve gained an appreciation for.”

After the playoffs, Joerger will then take pride in setting incremental personal goals. He will spend time with his two daughters. Perhaps he will aim to ride his bike for an hour without stopping, to read more, or to run 5 miles.

“This is an important offseason for me, too,” Joerger said. " ... Coming back better and stronger in the fall for our group is what I’m looking forward to.”

For now, such activities will call for another stack of buttery, syrupy pancakes.