BleedGopher
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per Joe:
An emotional year for Jay Sawvel has reached a beginning and an ending. He knows he’s reached new career heights, as he prepares for his first full season as Gophers defensive coordinator, and he knows his father, John, won’t have many more chances to watch.
John has been fighting stage IV pancreatic cancer in Barnesville, Ohio, population 4,200, where the seeds for his son’s coaching career were first planted.
John wasn’t a coach himself, but the long hours he spent as an accountant for the Barnesville Hospital taught Sawvel everything he needed to know about work ethic.
“Minus recruiting, he had a coach’s lifestyle,” Sawvel said. “We didn’t take vacations, didn’t do a lot of that stuff. He was at our games, but he brought work home with him. He worked on Saturday mornings. He’s been self-made.”
John, 75, had hoped to see the Gophers play the Quick Lane Bowl in person last year but wasn’t feeling well. In January, doctors made the bleak diagnosis. Sawvel has flown back home to see his father for short visits, in between recruiting and defensive strategy sessions.
“It is what it is,” Sawvel said. “He deals with a lot of pain. When you go back, you get three hours where he’ll be awake, and then he’ll go back and lay down.”
http://www.startribune.com/gophers-jay-sawvel-preps-for-career-peak-with-heavy-heart/390253211/
Go Gophers!!
An emotional year for Jay Sawvel has reached a beginning and an ending. He knows he’s reached new career heights, as he prepares for his first full season as Gophers defensive coordinator, and he knows his father, John, won’t have many more chances to watch.
John has been fighting stage IV pancreatic cancer in Barnesville, Ohio, population 4,200, where the seeds for his son’s coaching career were first planted.
John wasn’t a coach himself, but the long hours he spent as an accountant for the Barnesville Hospital taught Sawvel everything he needed to know about work ethic.
“Minus recruiting, he had a coach’s lifestyle,” Sawvel said. “We didn’t take vacations, didn’t do a lot of that stuff. He was at our games, but he brought work home with him. He worked on Saturday mornings. He’s been self-made.”
John, 75, had hoped to see the Gophers play the Quick Lane Bowl in person last year but wasn’t feeling well. In January, doctors made the bleak diagnosis. Sawvel has flown back home to see his father for short visits, in between recruiting and defensive strategy sessions.
“It is what it is,” Sawvel said. “He deals with a lot of pain. When you go back, you get three hours where he’ll be awake, and then he’ll go back and lay down.”
http://www.startribune.com/gophers-jay-sawvel-preps-for-career-peak-with-heavy-heart/390253211/
Go Gophers!!
