This is an opinion column.
“How does that make you feel?”
Yes, my wife went there. Someone I’d known for more than half my life, someone I covered during my days as a sportswriter had died. Of prostate cancer.
The same disease I was diagnosed with in July.
Longtime NBA fans’ hearts sank upon hearing Michael Ray Richardson died last month, losing a horrible battle with the disease.
Mine sank, too. Richardson played for the New Jersey Nets and the New York Knicks during the 1980s, when I covered those teams for The New York Times.
He died at 70; I’ll be 70 in March. My wife didn’t know Michael Ray from Michael Jackson. I was her concern.
“How does that make you feel?”
I didn’t quite yet know.
Richardson — “Sugar Ray,” to many — was a character. He was a dynamic, dominating player, a four-time All-Star who was magic before Magic. He was a 6-foot-5 point guard who passed, scored, rebounded and played demonizing defense a few years before 6-foot-9 Earvin “Magic” Johnson arrived and introduced a new generation to the “big” point guard with a windmill of skills.
Like Johnson, Richardson was the spark in any room. He possessed a child’s innocence and a wry humor that was unimpeded by a speech impediment. Indeed, it made you listen to Michael Ray.
I was in the locker room on Christmas Day 1981 following the struggling Knicks’ 96-95 loss to the cross-town rival New Jersey Nets. The Knicks were in transition after winning two championships in the 1970s. Franchise icons Earl “The Pearl” Monroe, Walt Frazier and others were gone, replaced by a patchwork roster led by a young and vulnerable Richardson. The loss was New York’s fourth straight.
Afterward, surrounded by a small group of reporters, Richardson, wrapped in a towel, calmly said: “The ship….be sinkin’.”
“How far can it sink?” one of us asked.
“The sky’s the limit,” the player responded.
You couldn’t make that up.
Richardson, too, had his demon — a drug addiction that he could not conquer until long after it cost him the best of his career. Many of today’s sports leagues’ policies and practices on managing, treating and, if necessary, penalizing athletes for drug use and addiction were borne out of the NBA’s handling of Richardson.
Between 1982 and 1987, I chronicled the awkward and uncomfortable dance between the league and Richardson. In February of 1986, Richardson was banned from the league for a third-strike violation of the NBA’s still-new policy on substance use. Two years later, after rehab, Richardson was reinstated but chose to finish his career as a star in Italy and France. He retired in 2002 at the age of 46.
Richardson conquered his addiction and settled to a quiet life in Lawton, Oklahoma.
Living with cancer
Since my urologist confirmed my biopsy results as prostate cancer, the most challenging aspect of my journey has been psychological. Living with cancer. Knowing that it’s in my body — from the moment I open my eyes each morning until I close them each evening. And while I sleep. Knowing it could kill me.
As I shared in an earlier Cancer Chronicle column, I believe in God and science. So, after three medical opinions and an abundance of prayer, I chose active monitoring as my treatment strategy after initially dismissing it.
I was able to do so because, thankfully, my cancer (stage 2) was caught relatively early after years of regular exams and tests. Prostate cancer killed my father when I was 11, so the disease was bound to snare me at some juncture. One in six Black men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer — compared with one in eight white men. The odds are worse for men with a direct relative with prostate cancer.
My cancer was also found to be slow-moving, and a genetic test revealed it was unlikely to become aggressive. Anything can happen, of course, but from the moment a heightened PSA (prostate-specific antigen) test in April launched my path toward discovering cancer, I was guided by faith, not fear.
Still, who chooses to walk around with cancer in their body when there are options for removing it? When there’s surgery? When there’s radiation and chemo? When there are other options? Plenty, apparently. Almost 60 percent of men with low-risk cancers (about 43 percent of all cases) now choose active monitoring, up from 26 percent in 2014, reported The New York Times.
Physically, I feel no different than the day I heard the word “cancer.” Now, when folks ask, “How are you doing?” while making that face, I respond with “Fine,” “Good,” or “Great!”
That’s the truth. Other than the aches and sprains that come with a 69-year-old body, I feel great.
It seems, though, that my phone knows I have cancer. I can’t pick it up without seeing an ad for a cancer drug or treatment or someone among the myriad of survivors now sharing their testimony. Like James Pickens, Jr., the Grey’s Anatomy actor who shared last month that he’s cancer-free after being diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2024.
Like me, he’d begun getting regular checkups and PSA tests in his 40s.
Like him, I hope to be cancer-free one day.
Like him, I’m sharing my journey with y’all to elevate awareness and encourage men over 40 to get tested.
I recently joined the board of directors of the Mike Slive Foundation for Cancer Research, which provides early-stage grants for potentially groundbreaking efforts to cure prostate cancer, and hosts free PSA testing at various events across Alabama and beyond. Next year, we’ll be at events throughout Alabama and the Southeast.
I am also an ambassador for NowIncluded, an online community where people in underrepresented communities are heard and supported throughout their health journeys.
Both entities are committed to saving lives. Our lives.
NBA buddies
Otis Birdsong and Richardson became teammates in February 1983.
“He respected me,” Birdsong told me the day after Richardson died. “He never did that stuff in front of me or tried to encourage me to do it. He did not sniff cocaine in front of me. We went out and he’d have his drink and I’d have my beer. He never talked about that stuff to me.”
The two remained close beyond the game. Birdsong, who lives in California, recalls Richardson making him laugh so hard “my head hurt.”
For the last 15 years the men co-hosted basketball camps for less-privileged youth. “He overcame so many obstacles,” Birdsong added. “He used to stutter real bad, where he could hardly get the words out. He got to the point where he could speak well and, man….”
Birdsong said his friend had surgery to remove his prostate more than a decade ago, but that the cancer had recently come back. In his shoulder. Richardson deteriorated, Birdsong said, over a few months.
The day before Richardson died, his wife FaceTimed with Birdsong from her husband’s bedside. “I called his name and tried to interact with him, but he wasn’t responding,” Birdsong said. He was laboring to breathe and wasn’t able to eat. I knew it was about time.”
I last spoke with Richardson a few years ago. We laughed, shared a few life stories. I told him I was happy for him.
On Wednesday, family and friends will memorialize him in Lawton.
News of his death hit me. News that the cause was prostate cancer hit, too.
“How does that make you feel?”
It was complex. From the onset of my diagnosis, I had the confidence, the faith that I’ll beat cancer. That I’ll endure, either with it (“More men will die with prostate cancer than from it,” my urologist said) or without. I already feel like a survivor.
I’m human, too. Whether it’s cancer or some other life-threatening disease or condition, when someone dies with what you’re battling, you see yourself in them. In their suffering. In their end.
Even if for just a glance.
Upon hearing of Michael Ray’s passing and suffering, I mourned for his last days. For what that must have been like for him and those who loved him. No one wants to see themselves in that narrative.
But we’re human, For a few moments, I did– until I shook off.
His story, my spirit whispered, is not yours.
Every cancer victim has their own journey. Their own story. After my diagnosis, I heard my father’s voice: My story does not have to be yours.
God is a Healer and, with my medical team, He’s working on me, for me and through me. I’ve got things to do, y’all.
So, after a brief pause, and a smile while remembering “Sugar Ray,” I told my wife: “I’m fine, good … great.”