Apr. 4—When Springfield baseball coach Dave Whitmire bounces around the third-base coaching box shouting instructions this spring, the journey back home will be complete.
Whitmire’s return to the diamond comes after a cancerous tumor — ironically the size of a baseball — temporarily silenced the baseball fanatic’s trademark high motor.
In April, 2019, Whitmire was diagnosed with adenocarcinoma, cancer in the small intestine. The middle school health teacher and father of four boys was loading up equipment to take his high school players to Myrtle Beach for spring training when his doctor called with the news.
“You think the worst when you get diagnosed,” Whitmire said. “The first thing that hit me was my kids and my wife, and that my wife would have to raise four boys on her own. The next thing I thought of was ‘Is this the end of baseball?’ I knew it wasn’t the end of life because I’m a fighter and I knew I’d get through it.
“I’d been involved in baseball for 27 years as a coach and beyond that, I’ve loved it since I was an 8-year-old kid playing Wiffle ball. I just couldn’t imagine losing something that meant the world to me.”
Whitmire underwent major surgery at Toledo Hospital where doctors removed eight inches of his intestine, six inches of his colon, and five inches of his bladder. Seven months of chemotherapy followed before a scan came back clear, indicating the cancer had not spread to his lymph nodes.
The 50-year-old felt well enough to get back on the field last spring, but the coronavirus pandemic canceled the season.
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Last Saturday, “Whit” jogged back onto the field — along with his son Tanner, a sophomore center fielder — for Springfield’s season opener against Swanton.
“I got choked up,” he said. “My whole family was there. I went out to coach third base, and it was a surreal moment. I had to catch my breath and realize how far I’d come to get back to this point.”
It had been the longest stretch the Bowling Green High School graduate and former Bowling Green State University player had been away from a baseball field.
“It’s where he belongs,” said Springfield softball coach Rob Gwozdz, one of Whitmire’s closest friends. “It’s his second home, teaching and mentoring young men to become better players and, most importantly, better people. To see Whit and his oldest son run onto the field together is really special. To know that he won his battle with cancer and now he gets to start coaching all his sons in the game that he loves so much makes me tear up. Baseball and Whit go hand in hand.”
Whitmire, who also has coached at Owens Community College, BGSU, and Otsego and Elmwood high schools, enters his 13th season at Springfield with 191 career wins as a varsity coach.
“I feel like I’m thriving again and that I’ve been given a second chance. I have a new vision on life,” he said. “I’m as competitive as anybody, but I can tell you at the end of the day the losses will hurt a little bit less knowing that I was able to be out there.”
Veteran Anthony Wayne coach Mark Nell, who has known Whitmire for 31 years, said he looks forward to seeing Whitmire and his young team on April 21.
“It’ll be nice to see him bouncing around that third base coach’s box and barking at the ump,” Nell said. “That’s where he belongs.”
Springfield athletic director Andrew Screptock said seeing Whitmire back in action will help everyone feel a little more normal.
“Dave is back in his natural habitat with a new appreciation for baseball and life and I know he’s eager to have a positive impact on our kids,” Screptock said. “I’m most thankful that Annie and his kids have a husband and father back at home, healthy and happy.”
Longtime Perrysburg baseball coach Dave Hall said Whitmire is always outgoing and very friendly.
“He would do anything for anybody,” Hall said. “But on the field, he is a fierce competitor.”
Out of the blue
Whitmire got the worse news of his life on one of his favorite days.
“My doctor called and asked if I had a minute and I told him I was about to get on the van with my high school team,” Whitmire recalled. “He told me they found a tumor and that they needed to get a biopsy.”
Yet, he still made the trip with his wife doing most of the driving for the shocked coach.
“I made the trip for the kids. We had raised money for it. I was able to take my family with me,” he said.
Whitmire said doctors believed he had the tumor for a year before he noticed it.
“I had no symptoms. I had the occasional stomach pain that we all have but it went away a day later. I’m a health teacher. I don’t smoke. I’m a social alcohol drinker and I watch my diet. It really floored me when I got the news,” he said.
The only warning sign was an unusual new habit.
“I started being addicted to ice. I’ve never chewed ice my whole life,” he said. “The doctor said I could be anemic. And sure enough, I had barely any iron in my body. So that led to a CT scan and that showed the tumor.”
He had to wait another month to have surgery because his iron was too low. He had coached about a third of the high school season as he had red-blood-cell infusions twice a week.
“That’s when I gave up baseball,” he said. “Then, during the whole process, it was all about getting back on the field. I really wanted to get back for the kids.”
Adenocarcinoma is a rare small intestinal cancer with only about 10,000 to 15,000 cases per year.
“They treat it like colon cancer,” Whitmire said. “The tumor was wrapped around the outside and the only way to get it out was major surgery.”
Whitmire stayed in the hospital for seven days.
“I had to get out of bed and walk. The first couple of times I walked to the end of the hall, it was like running a marathon. It took everything out of me,” he said.
Limited to a liquid diet for 14 days, Whitmire lost 22 pounds in a week and a half.
“I had so much Jell-O in the hospital … if someone puts it in front of me today I want to vomit,” he said.
Nell said he knew his counterpart would use that same approach in his battle with cancer.
“I knew he would battle and compete just like he coaches,” Nell said.
Screptock said the entire Springfield staff and community were worried yet hopeful that Whitmire would make a quick and full recovery.
“We all know Dave to be active and hard-nosed so we knew he had a good fight in him,” Screptock said. “One of our high school Spanish teachers had her class send him homemade cards to the hospital and he got a real kick out of some of the things the kids wrote.”
Whitmire said he finally felt well enough to go watch his high school team play its last game of the season in the sectional tournament.
Whitmire then faced extensive rounds of chemotherapy.
“I was taking 5,000 milligrams of pills per day,” he said. “It was crazy. I was so tired the first couple of months. The worst side effect was that I had neuropathy in my hands and feet extremely bad. There were days I couldn’t feel my fingers and toes and it would be like that for hours.”
Springfield defeated Swanton 10-0 in the home opener last Saturday with Whitmire’s mom and dad, Diane and Duane, in the stands.
“My mom and dad come to everything,” Whitmire said. “I can talk to my dad about anything. My dad was instrumental in coaching myself and my two brothers. If I asked my dad to go out and hit me 500 ground balls, he’d find the time to do it. So it’s all been family ties. I’ve had great support from my family.”
Whitmire started his career as an assistant at Elmwood under longtime Royals coach Kyle Reiser.
“Dave has always been goal-driven,” Reiser said. “When he sets his mind to do something he makes it happen. With that mentality as well as the support from his great family, I had no doubt he would come through this and get back on the diamond to continue to be a part of the game he loves.”
Baseball blood
A 1989 BGHS graduate, Whitmire played baseball at BGSU from 1989-91. Nell called him a baseball junkie.
“He has got it in his blood, the love the game,” Nell said. “He’s very passionate about the game. He likes his kids to play the right way. When we get between the white lines, we try to beat each other. But a few days later, we’re friends again.”
Gwozdz said he and his spring coaching cohort became close friends over the years, sharing stories while on bus trips.
“Whit is 100 percent a baseball guy,” Gwozdz said. “I could sit for hours listening to his old stories when he coached at Owens and BGSU.”
Gwozdz said the coaches have exchanged thoughts on game plans and philosophies.
“In my 15 years, I have learned so much in the strategy part of the game that I have taken to my program,” said Gwozdz.
In 1994, Whitmire started the Northwest Ohio Amateur Baseball League. The league began with 10 teams with a 14-year-old division. It now has more than 100 teams and has been the biggest travel league in northwest Ohio for 15 years.
He has four boys who are involved in all sports. Dave and his wife Annie also have an eighth-grader named Camren, a sixth-grader Cale, and a third-grader Tate.
“It still gets me excited to see them play Wiffle ball in the backyard,” he said.
In 1997, Whitmire took his first head baseball coaching job at Otsego and led the Knights to a Suburban Lakes League title in his first season. Whitmire then became an assistant at Owens with the Express, winning three championships.
He went back to BGSU as an assistant, helping the Falcons win Mid-American Conference championships in 2002 and 2008. He took the head coaching job at Springfield in 2009.
“I’ve been described as the Energizer bunny. But that’s all on my wife. She’s the glue of the family. She keeps it all together,” he said.
Whitmire said he encourages men to get colonoscopies and have regular health checkups.
“I preach that no matter what age you are, do not wait on something,” he said. “I’m not out of the woods. The goal with cancer is always that five-year window. I’m getting scans done quarterly.
“It’s amazing to me what came to the forefront when I had my cancer. I still can’t believe all the people who reached out. Out of the blue, I still get a text from someone.
“That is the baseball fraternity. You need others’ support. I would not have gotten through it without my family and without those people reaching out to me.”
First Published April 3, 2021, 4:05pm
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