SAN FRANCISCO — Bruce DeHaven has a job to do. A life to live. Many things to accomplish.
Cancer is not going to get in the way.
Not in the way of winning a Super Bowl on Sunday at Levi’s Stadium.
Definitely not in the way of his family.
So DeHaven, the Panthers’ special teams coordinator, will take on the task of figuring out how to get his units to make a few more big plays than the Broncos in Super Bowl 50.
The prostrate cancer he has been battling while coaching this season?
On the back burner.
When you are stocked with an insidious disease like cancer the best therapy — if you are fortunate enough to be physically able — is to carry on with your life rather than dwell on your misfortune.
DeHaven, who has been coaching special teams in the NFL since 1987 and has endured his share of heartache, had been polite but uncomfortable taking about his public bout with prostate cancer.
“I’m not going to talk about this very much,” DeHaven said a number of times during the interview periods.
His reasoning has multiple layers.
He does not want to be viewed as some sort of hero, knowing there are countless others in his situation quietly fighting the same disease.
Most importantly, he is protective of his family, particularly his kids.
“They don’t need to hear their dad talking about being sick,” DeHaven said. “They see me and I look good, so that’s what they need to see. I’m just kind of going to refrain from answering a whole lot of questions about all of that.”
DeHaven’s cancer was discovered during a routine physical last year, when he mentioned some symptoms to his doctor.
“It was almost an afterthought: ‘Hey, by the way, this is kind of happening,’ ” he recalled.
“I went and started doing some more checkups and here I am.”
His doctor gave DeHaven three-to-five years to live — a diagnosis he uderstandably is not comfortable talking about.
DeHaven, who has been with the Panthers since 2013, took a six-week leave and went to Buffalo for hormone treatments, which he said he still receives every three months.
He has missed only one meeting since.
He recalled a conversation with his doctor about how he was going to proceed with his life, his routine, while fighting the illness.
“I kept talking about coming back and working,” he said. “[The doctor] starts kind of laughing. He looks at me and my wife and says, ‘I think he wants to work.’ I said, ‘Well, I do, if I can work.’
“I can’t imagine anything worse than sitting around the house thinking about this. I mean, I think about it all the time, but not like I would if I was just sitting around the house not doing anything.”
DeHaven is used to dealing with adversity on the football field. Maybe, in however small a way, it is helping him through this.
He was the Bills’ special teams coordinator when Scott Norwood’s potential Super Bowl game-winning field goal drifted wide right in Tampa, Fla., giving the Giants the title.
He was still the Bills’ special teams coordinator a decade later when the Titans stunned Buffalo with the infamous “Music City Miracle” kickoff return to win a playoff game.
DeHaven, in fact, was with the Bills for all four of their Super Bowl losses.
On Sunday, he has a chance to be part of a winning Super Bowl team.
“I’ve just had the time of my life being around these players this year,” the 67-year-old DeHaven said.
Win or lose Sunday, DeHaven conceded his outlook on life has changed since his diagnosis.
“There’s things that used to bother me that just don’t seem that important anymore,” he said. “You get a little different perspective on it. I mean, we all know where it’s going to end someday, but then when all of a sudden numbers are put out there, you go, ‘Whoa, now, I hadn’t kind of figured on that being here quite that quick.’ ”