The miracles come in the mail, 12 miracles and counting, each one a letter from a stranger – thanking University of Cincinnati basketball coach Mick Cronin for indirectly saving his life.
"I got another one today," Cronin was telling me earlier this week, as his eighth-seeded UC team was preparing – with him, and without him – to face ninth-seeded Purdue in an NCAA Tournament opener Thursday. "This one came from Minneapolis."
It came from a man experiencing headaches that mocked the word headache. Cronin understood. He's had headaches, but the head pain he was having in December defied description. Cronin and I spent nearly an hour on the phone, and four times I asked him to describe the pain that ended his season. This was the best he could do:
"It's indescribable – something I'd never felt before," he said. "Hopefully most people won't experience something like this."
Later, my fifth try: Tell me what that pain felt like, Mick. Make me feel it with you.
Cronin thought for a moment.
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"It's not your normal headache pain – it's nerve pain," he said. "It irritates your nerve endings, which are so sensitive in your brain. That's not a headache. It's very different. Nerve pain is the worst. Your nerves start going nuts, like a fire alarm."
And the man in Minneapolis, he felt that fire alarm. As he wrote in his letter earlier this week, he wouldn't normally have gone to the doctor for a headache, even one that defied description. He'd have taken more aspirin and tried to cope. But the guy in Minneapolis, he's a UC fan. He followed the news when it broke in December that Cronin was taking a medical leave for the rest of the season. He read about Cronin's headaches, about the discovery of an unruptured aneurysm near Cronin's brain.
What's an unruptured aneurysm? It's a time bomb. Tick. Tick. If it ruptures, the bomb detonates.
In your brain.
"Game over," Cronin says.
So the man in Minneapolis, he knew Cronin's story and thought it sounded familiar. So this guy didn't go to his doctor – he went to the emergency room. He was given an MRI, then a CAT scan. And when the ER physician in Minneapolis said he had an obscure condition called arterial dissection, the man – according to his letter to Mick Cronin – answered like so:
"I know exactly what that is. Coach Cronin's got it."
Cronin picks up the story from there:
"And the doctor in Minneapolis looks at him like, 'Who the hell's Coach Cronin?'"
Good question. With an elusive answer.
***
Some days, he's still Coach Cronin. Lead assistant Larry Davis has been the Bearcats' interim coach since early January, running practices and games, but Cronin hasn't stepped away entirely. The doctor told him he should, of course, but Cronin put up a fuss. How do you think he got the aneurysm in the first place? The guy works hard and is wound tight.
"They said stay away three months, but I wasn't going to desert LD," Cronin says of Davis. "I told doctors I can go in, I can recruit, I can watch film. They said, 'Fine – but you can't get too caught up in it. And no screaming at the TV.' "
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Cincinnati was 7-2 after beating San Diego State on Dec. 17 when Cronin first went to a doctor. He missed three games while they ran tests, then in early January ceded duties to Davis – who has gone 15-8, including wins in the final five regular-season games to get the Bearcats off the bubble and comfortably into the NCAA field. But Cronin is in the office daily, watching film, meeting with staff and players. And in front of the players, he calls Davis "Coach."
"No confusion," Cronin says. "Larry Davis is in charge."
Cronin has watched more basketball this season than ever. When the NCAA bracket was unveiled and Cincinnati drew Purdue, Davis asked Cronin for a quick scouting report and Cronin had one: Purdue's improvement in the final month, its defensive cohesiveness, the way coach Matt Painter – Cronin's friend for nearly a decade – had unlocked the key to A.J. Hammons' potential greatness.
As for Painter, he knows he's contending with Cronin, one way or another.
"There's daily conversations and he's around," Painter says. "He's still behind the scenes doing a lot of work."
Most days, he's Coach Cronin. But there are days he's … less. He doesn't fly to road games – to avoid the change in cabin pressure – but he goes to the arena before home games, and will be on the team bus to Louisville. Cronin attends shoot-around, then leaves. When the Bearcats play in Cincinnati, he goes home to watch on TV. When Cincinnati plays Purdue, he'll return to the team hotel.
"It's a feeling of inadequacy," Cronin says. "For the first time in my life, I can't go do my job."
***
If we run into each other during the tournament, Cronin wants me prepared for what I'll see. He's not entirely comfortable with his appearance, because he doesn't look sick. He hasn't felt sick for months, not since the antibiotics started working. When I see him, I'll see him looking his best. He's not at peace with that.
"You'll be like, 'Dude, you look better than when you were coaching,' " Cronin says. "Yeah – because I'm resting. Coaches see me, and it's weird. They go, 'Man, you look great.' Yeah, I'm not burned out."
Then he says the following, because he knows how it looks. He looks too … good. How sick can he be? This sick:
"I have a tear in an artery carrying blood to my brain," he says. "If it breaks, game over."
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This is serious, deadly so, and Cronin gets it. He didn't get it at first, saying the diagnosis and aftermath – figuring out what to do with his team – had him in a fog.
"I couldn't even grasp what was happening," he says. "Just trying to get through the days."
He came to realize how serious this was. And how lucky he was.
"Tumor in your head. Or a stroke," he says, listing his worst fears. "So many things going through my mind. Trust me, this was the best case (scenario). People say, 'I'm sorry.' Hey man, I went to a brain surgeon and came out with no surgery, just some aspirin and an antibiotic that promotes arterial healing – and (was) told to rest. That's a win."
There are other wins. They come in the mail. Twelve letters, Cronin says he has received. From 12 states.
"Pretty much the same message," he says. "People had terrible headaches they couldn't describe, didn't know what to do. They heard about my issue, and they went to get help. Can you imagine how good that feels?"
Must be indescribable.
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Doyel: Unable to coach, Cincy's Cronin helps save lives
