Former Missouri head coach Gary Pinkel revealed Sunday he is once again undergoing treatment to fight non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Non-Hodgkin lymphoma is a cancer that stars in the lymph nodes and quickly spreads across the body.
“I’m doing good,” Pinkel said in an interview with KMIZ. “I had to get treatment again for the first time in four years. My cancer came out of remission, and so I had treatment last month. I’m doing fine. With my type of lymphoma, you'll never be healed. But that's kind of why I retired when I did — I just wanted to not go back and regret working 85 hours a week, 35 weeks out of the year when I could be doing other things with my family and my eight grandkids.”
Pinkel served as Mizzou's head coach from 2001-15 (and led Toledo for the 10 seasons before that), stepping down after the 2015 season upon his first non-Hodgkin's lymphoma diagnosis, which came in May of 2015.
In the years since, he has started the GP M.A.D.E. Foundation, which supports children with cancer and provides mentorship for children with physical, social or economic challenges.
“You keep battling it,” Pinkel said. “I’m going to battle it. I’ve got a very positive approach to it, and I’m around a lot of good people that are helping me. There’s a lot of people out there with a lot worse cancers than Gary Pinkel has, and so prayers to all of them.”
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