Coach’s medical scare puts basketball in perspective. Now comes Kentucky game.
During a telephone conversation this week, Fairleigh Dickinson Coach Greg Herenda expressed his appreciation for Kentucky’s willingness to play his team on Saturday. To compete against a highly ranked UK team in the iconic setting that is Rupp Arena will be an unforgettable experience and a long-lasting memory for his players.
But it will not be life-changing.
For Herenda, that kind of transformative moment came at the 2018 Final Four. Before boarding a flight to San Antonio, he felt enough discomfort in a leg to consider staying home. But he went. On the day of the national semifinals — and two days before his 57th birthday — he was rushed to the hospital. Doctors discovered two blood clots. He recalled having a 104.5-degree fever and a leg swollen to three times its normal size. He was hospitalized 15 days in San Antonio’s Metropolitan Methodist Hospital, suffering from May-Thurner syndrome. More than a week of that time he spent in intensive care.
During his recovery, Herenda was confined to a wheelchair. Then he needed the assistance of a walker and then a cane.
Yes, he said, this made him rethink the typical coaching personality, which could be likened to a drill sergeant with bunions.
“I think it makes you stop and think,” Herenda said. “I’ve kind of slowed down a little bit. . . . I think ‘perspective’ is the word. I think I have things in better perspective.
“When I was a young coach, it was non-stop. And it was every play and coaching every play and refereeing every call. I just think less is more. And sometimes an episode like I went through makes you realize that.”
Herenda said the relationship he had with players changed “drastically.” He said he’s become more attuned to the players’ well being on and off the court.
“Understanding basketball is very important,” he said. “But what’s more important is the health and well being of my student-athletes.”
Coincidentally or not, Fairleigh Dickinson enjoyed historic success the following season. The Knights won their first NCAA Tournament game in program history, beating Prairie View A&M 82-76 in a so-called First Four matchup last March.
Fairleigh Dickinson advanced to the West Region, where the Knights lost to No. 1-seed Gonzaga, 87-49. For Herenda, the game made him think of his medical ordeal in San Antonio the year before when he collapsed while on a walk with his son, Trey.
“The last people we saw were (Gonzaga Coach) Mark Few and (CBS broadcaster) Jim Nantz on the River Walk,” Herenda said. “And then 12 months later, we’re playing Few in the NCAA Tournament. You couldn’t make it up.”
Sharing mother’s advice
In another stranger-than-fiction experience, Herenda was the commencement speaker at Fairleigh Dickinson’s graduation ceremony this past spring at Met Life Stadium, where the New York Giants and Jets play home games. Four of his players were among the graduates.
“Most people quote famous poets and historians,” Herenda said of such speeches. “I quoted my mother, who is my best friend.”
The motherly advice he conveyed to graduates: Ring the doorbell with your elbows.
Herenda then volunteered what he called “a quick New Jersey translation”: When you visit someone, bring a gift.
“All our graduates have great things to bring to this world,” he said. “And that’s what my family has been made of, and what our program is about. We try to bring things to other people.”
At the beginning of his recovery, Herenda could not even watch basketball. While laying in a San Antonio hospital bed, he did not watch much of the 2018 Villanova-Michigan championship game. “I put the game on for maybe a minute,” he said. “It was just too much energy for me to even watch a basketball game. And it was the national championship game. That’s how serious the situation was.”
When Fairleigh Dickinson played at Providence early last season, Herenda needed help standing up for the playing of the national anthem. He said it was difficult for his players to see him using a cane, which he compared to a child seeing a parent cry, the New Jersey Record reported.
Herenda said he takes blood thinners, feels much better and will not need help standing for the national anthem in Rupp Arena on Saturday.
“Just kind of back to as normal as I can be,” he said. “I’m a very lucky man.”
Saturday
Fairleigh Dickinson at No. 8 Kentucky
When: 4 p.m.
TV: SEC Network
Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1
Records: Fairleigh Dickinson 2-5, Kentucky 6-1
Series: First meeting
This story was originally published December 6, 2019 at 8:01 AM.
