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I have tried to recreate events, locales, and conversations from my memories of them. In order to maintain their anonymity, in some instances, I have changed the names of individuals and places. I may have changed some identifying characteristics and details such as physical properties, occupations, and places of residence.

Unless otherwise notes, all scripture quotations are taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

It is his identity. It’s not just a number as it would appear to most folks. This #20 is a living organism like no other. Just ask him. Or just listen to him. Or just watch him. This #20 is one of a kind.

Mike will tell you: “Number twenty in your program—number one in your heart.” And he means it! When you hit .556 for a magical season in 1977 in the TX/LA Professional Baseball League, win the league championship, are named MVP and Offensive Player of the Year two years in a row, then the #20 takes on a life all its own. That’s the Mike Coy I was raised with. That’s the Mike Coy I know.

Mike Coy had cancer, but cancer never had Mike Coy. Why? Because He Chose…Live.

From all the knowledge we gain in life, we end up being well-suited for just about anything that can be thrown at us. Divorce, job changes, teenagers, and even learning how to like things we never liked before. In all this preparation for dealing with life’s complications, it seems we are never truly prepared for what might be the end. I’ve thought a lot about how I would handle being told I had cancer. But playing it in my mind is different than the reality of actually hearing the words.

I was kicked in the gut when Mike Coy told me about his diagnosis of the malignant tumor in his throat. I was astounded at his positive attitude. From the moment of diagnosis, he put on his cap and decided to play hardball. He chose life.

Growing up in the 1960s, I have many fond memories of youth, and one specific memory, that seems to intertwine many of the characters in this book, is playing baseball. I met #20’s dad,

L.M. Coy, through baseball. Every kid that played organized baseball knew Mr. Coy. He was an institution among those calling balls and strikes, and before I really got to know him, I thought he was a baseball ogre with an umpire mask. He turned out to be one of the nicest gentlemen I ever met, and he truly loved being around the youth of the sport. (I think it kept him young.)

Just as I did, Mike learned a lot about life on the baseball field. He learned that every person on the team has a role to play and that a player should play in the spot that fits their abilities. He learned that striking out is part of the game, but that he could get his fair share of hits if he worked hard enough. He learned it’s not the size of the player that counts but the size of the heart of the player. Mike Coy has a big heart for the game of life. He chose it. He Chose…Live.

Hours before my beloved father passed away from rapidly developing dementia and stage-IV prostate cancer, he said to me, “Son, make a difference.” I sincerely hope that when my time comes to pass to the other side, my friends and family will be celebrating my life at the County Line Restaurant on the Hill in Austin, Texas, telling lies and retelling stories about my exciting and blessed life. And when I meet back up with my father one day, I want to be able to say to him, “Pop, I tried my best to make a difference. I really, really tried.”

Mark Twain once said, “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” I was born in Beaumont, Texas, on June 9, 1953, and I have no doubt I found out why on July 12, 2013, when an ear, nose, and throat doctor came into my exam room and said those three words no one ever wants to hear: You. Have. Cancer.

Perhaps no one ever thinks they could get cancer. I certainly never thought I would be someone to get it. I came from a family whose members just didn’t have time to be sick. My mother, Helen, was a public school English teacher. She had her master’s degree from Baylor University, which many women did not have in the early 1940s, and she always had a dream of starting the first private school in Beaumont, Texas. My dad, L.M. Coy, was a high school football coach who also taught math and science. He sold World Book Encyclopedias on the side, was a layman Disciple of Christ minister, and he umpired Little League baseball for over fifty years. When my parents were first married, my mother used $20,000 of inheritance money from her grandmother so she and my father could start Coy’s Day School in August of 1952. As I said, there was no time for illness in my family.

Now, my mother drank like a fish and cursed like a sailor, but I don’t think I’ve ever been around another person as driven as she was. She poured her heart and soul into that school and made sure it was going to be the best. After teaching for years in the public school arena, she knew people would pay a little more for their children to receive a better education. Sure enough, the school exploded once the doors were opened. Anybody who was anybody came to Coy’s Day School.

It was mostly an all-white school for many years because Beaumont was still very segregated in the fifties and sixties. The black community lived north and south, and the white people lived in the west end. Coy’s Day School was smack-dab in the middle of the west end of Beaumont on West Lucas Drive. The school flourished for years, and the demand was so great that my parents opened another school down the street from the first.

My parents’ relationship was rocky from the beginning, and my mother was not the gentlest of women. The one constant at that school and in my life was my “black momma,” Lucille Davis. Lucille was the cook at the school and my mother’s maid at the house. She probably had a thirdgrade education, could barely sign her name, and I’m not sure if she ever read a book in her life, but she had more common sense than anyone I’ve ever known. When I was sixteen years old, my parents divorced and my life changed dramatically. I stayed with my mother because she had the money and I didn’t want to be a burden on my dad. Luckily for me, Lucille was there too.

When they divorced, my mother kept the bigger school and my father kept the smaller one down the road with the older students. That made for some fun times—let me tell you! I remember seeing the great musicians Johnny and Edgar Winter as kids staying inside during recess at my dad’s school because they were both albinos. The majority of the rich and middle classes of Beaumont sent their children to my mother’s school because she could teach reading like no other. She was a pioneer in using phonics to teach reading and would break words down so everyone could understand them.

At the time of their separation, neither of my parents were strangers to divorce. My mother was married and divorced three times before she was thirty years old. She was not easy to live with for any length of time, and her “track record” proved it. I’m not sure if the drinking came from her mother dying at such a young age or having her best friend die in a car wreck (both of which she might have felt responsible for). On top of the drinking, she had been raised by a grandmother who spoiled her and taught her about all the “evils of men.” My dad had also been married three times; but, unlike my mother, he had a great affinity for members of the opposite sex.

I always looked up to my father. He loved life and lived it well. A “Renaissance Man,” he flew airplanes, drove fancy cars, dressed to the max, and he was a tremendous athlete. My dad was only five foot five, but he thought he was six foot five. He was a champion handball player and the only person in his family ever to go to college and graduate. He was the quarterback at South Park Junior College (later Lamar University) in Beaumont, Texas, and then he quarterbacked the Pirates of Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. His college was paid for through athletics, and he took full advantage of the opportunity. What made this journey even more impressive was the fact my father was born with clubbed feet. He walked with braces on his legs until he was seven years old. The doctors thought he would never be able to walk, much less run like he did, but I guess he showed them.

Among his many interesting qualities, my dad was a great public speaker. Oh, how he could hold an audience in the palm of his hand. He was a layman minister, which meant anytime an area church lost their pastor, for whatever reason, my dad would step in and help them out until a permanent pastor could be found. These gigs normally lasted about six weeks to six months, but not for my dad. His time was more like six years. He pastored Sour Lake Christian Church in Sour Lake, Texas, for six years as well as Bridge City Christian Church in Bridge City, Texas, for over seven years. His dream job was the Washington Boulevard Christian Church in South Beaumont that had become heavily integrated by the early seventies. He loved that church and the people loved him back—black and white.

My dad was very laid back. His life revolved around helping others and making a difference. He never drank. He never smoked. He never cursed. That’s how I was raised: with my mother going ninety miles an hour—yelling, screaming, cussing up a storm, then drinking every night until she passed out on the couch, floor, and sometimes the bed—and my father just rolling along without a care in the world.

Sometimes it seemed like it was just dad and me against the world—both of us living with someone as different and crazy as crazy could be. I have no doubt, knowing what I know today, my mother had to be bi-polar and the drinking just made everything worse. She did not want to be around anyone positive, cheerful, or happy. My dad was the complete opposite. I will never understand how they were able to stay married for over twenty-five years and not kill one another.

During the divorce, my father moved back in with his mother, Hassie, my beloved grandmother. I knew having daddy living there was a burden on her, and I didn’t want to add to it. Staying with my mother might have been the biggest mistake of my life, but I had the freedom to do whatever I wanted to do, and I did it. No drugs, no drinking—just some very late nights chasing girls and shooting hoops at the church down the street.

I guess playing sports kept me in check more than I realized growing up. All my coaches and principals knew my father very well, and I paid for any and all mistakes I made for that reason. I had a bad habit of cursing a little too much and a little too loud. The coaches at Forest Park High School in Beaumont, Texas, did not stand for that. So, I had to run football stands as punishment. And I mean I ran football stands over and over again. Coach Mallett, my basketball coach, told me one day that I might not be the best athlete to ever graduate from FPHS, but that I might be the best conditioned.