Darren Shanks (Part 5)

Good News! Darren is finally home from the Hospital. He has been getting tons of well wishes from his friends and neighbors via the CaringBridge website. Thank you all for your continued prayers and support.

Darren, unfortunately, was losing his hair in large clumps due to the chemotherapy. Darren finally ended up shearing his hair off. His father Tom shaved his mustache off in support of Darren.



Earlier in the year, one of the lessons we passed onto our players is to support a cause near and dear to our hearts. That is why we all wore pink at our final home game against Scripps Ranch, not because it was cool and NFL players were doing it. We had our players talk about the social ramifications of supporting a cause and how it affected us on a personal level. Several of our players, including myself, had family or freinds that were diagnosed with breast cancer. That is why we took on the cause to support Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Part of being a man for others are those lessons on how to serve others and how we can make a difference in the lives of others. Football is just a vehicle or a metaphor to take those lessons and turn them into reality. For that reason alone, I was truly blessed to have the young men I coached last year. They renewed my faith in the future and the future of our community as men.

Vivian, Darren's mom, called me one night a couple of week ago to thank me for helping raise her son into a man. We became very emotional over the phone as she explained the strength, will to fight and determination Darren had to battle this cancer. And all Darren could think about was getting better to get back onto the football field to be with his friends and team mates.

So this message goes out to the players and parents of the 2009 Freshman Football team: I will be shearing off all the hair on my head on Wednesday March 3rd. I welcome any and all players who wish to participate in shearing off my hair to participate in room 500 on March the 3rd. I will let the players cut my hair off, bit by bit under one condition: I get to cut their hair off also!

I will be handing permission slips out to the players on Wednesday 2/24/10 to the players to ask parents to allow us to cut the hair of the players. Heaven forbid I cut the hair off a player without a parent knowing. Only those with permission slips will be allowed to participate in the team function of "Haircut for Darren Day".

When we are done, we will take and team picture to send to Darren. If you have any questions, feel free to give a call at (619) 980-4159.