AUBURN, Ala. – Wes Flanigan still remembers that first sign of pain in his arm. He was a freshman guard at Auburn during the 1993-94 season, and while trying to run through a screen in practice, he ran square into teammate Aaron Swinson.
At first, Flanigan thought it was just a bruise on his arm. No need to worry. But the bruise kept getting bigger and more uncomfortable. When he met with the team trainer about it, they initially thought it was calcium deposits and tried to break up the bone with ultrasound almost every day. But it just kept getting bigger, and he kept taking hits on it.
It wasn't until his junior year, a year and a half later, that Flanigan discovered that it wasn't a bruise or calcium deposits. It was cancer cells in his arm.
"I couldn't believe it," Flanigan said. "I couldn't believe it because here I am, I was a really good athlete and there weren't a lot of things that bothered me. From a conditioning standpoint and a pain standpoint, I always felt like I could get through anything. And I didn't feel like cancer was in my body. I just really didn't.
"When they said that, I was like, 'No, not me. Not at this particular time in my life. I got something I'm trying to do here. I want to have a great senior year. I want to take this team to the NCAA tournament. I want to get to the NBA.' All these things are going across my mind, and I just didn't know at that particular point if I was going to even survive."
After the diagnosis, doctors performed a bone graft where they took the fibula from Flanigan's right leg and put it in his left arm and put a plate over it. At the time, they told him that had he waited another 10 or 12 months, he likely would have lost his left arm.
The next three months of recovery are still the most challenging three months Flanigan can remember. For the first time in his life, he was without basketball.
"It was the toughest, most depressing time in my life," Flanigan said. "Especially at a young age, understanding what that was going to mean to a person like me going into my senior year, which I was expecting to have a heck of a year."
Flanigan made it back in time to play his senior season, but coming off a year in which he averaged career highs in points (13.4) and assists (6.7) per game, it was clear that he wasn't the same player he was before.
"I didn't have a great season," Flanigan said. "But it taught me perseverance. It taught me adversity. It taught me how to deal with something that you can't control."
The dream of one day playing in the NBA never came for Flanigan, who won the USBWA Most Courageous award after that 1996-97 season. But now, 22 years later, he's living out another dream. He's following in the footsteps of his father, a legendary high school basketball coach in Arkansas, and he's coaching at his alma mater as an assistant under Bruce Pearl.
"It's been unbelievable for me," Flanigan said. "When I left here, I always wanted to be able to come back. And when I get a chance to speak, I tell the people here at Auburn how much I thank them just for being there for a young guy who was nine hours away from his parents. There were so many people that supported during that.
"The Auburn family stood up for me. People came by with flowers and cookies, just came to say hello. They sent me e-mails, sent me letters, and that helped me at the time when I needed it."
On Saturday, Auburn will host its annual AUTLIVE Cancer game against Alabama. It started when Pearl was at Tennessee and one of his players, Chris Lofton, was diagnosed with cancer. And now it has carried over to Auburn where it continues to raise awareness for people to get checked and raise money for those who are battling cancer.
For Flanigan, this will be his first AUTLIVE game as an Auburn assistant coach.
"I would advise anybody – if you are dealing with pain or you have anything in your body that you don't think is right, go get it checked," Flanigan said. "Just go get it checked. Because again, another 10 months or 12 months, I'm sitting here without a left arm right now.
"And if it's not for Eugene Harris really sitting me down and saying, 'Wes, you need to go get this checked out,' I'm probably still playing basketball. I probably don't go to the doctor. I probably don't talk to Dave Kindy. And who knows? I may not be here today."
Greg Ostendorf is a Senior Writer for AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: @greg_ostendorf
