Slowly, Bounce Returns to Westhoff?s Steps By GREG BISHOP Published: March 9, 2008 Mike Westhoff had endured eight operations over the years to repair his left leg, but the ninth, performed in mid-February, was the most difficult. A team of doctors at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan spent 10 hours replacing 20 years of plates and screws and staples. When they finished, Dr. John Healey approached Westhoff?s son, John, with a giant smile on his weary face. ?It worked just like we drew it up,? John Westhoff said the doctor had told him. That struck the younger Westhoff as something his father would have said. For nearly 30 years as an assistant coach in the N.F.L., Mike Westhoff had diagrammed plays ? on napkins, in binders, on litter at the stadium ? that often worked exactly as he drew them. Doctors discovered a malignant tumor the size of an egg on Westhoff?s left femur in 1988. He never stopped coaching. But the series of operations left his leg a maze of hardware. The latest operation was intended to start anew. It meant Westhoff would have to quit coaching the Jets? special teams, if only for the coming season. He told his players in the week before the season finale against the Chiefs, and on the morning of the game, the team showed a video montage of his career, which left several players near tears. ?My situation required abrupt changes,? Westhoff said in a recent phone interview. ?There was a certain sadness. But I don?t think I?ve ever pictured myself being finished with football. What I?ve done is place that on hold.? Surgery loomed. Westhoff, typically, spent the next six weeks in preparation. The hardest part was packing up his office. Westhoff spent more time there than at home, and so he had filled the place with history: pictures of blocked punts and kicks returned for touchdowns, computer files full of schemes, candids taken while whitewater rafting and shark fishing. ?It was like a home,? Westhoff said. ?When people walked inside, I wanted them to not only see me for who I was, but to see themselves.? Placing everything in boxes felt like packing part of himself away. But Westhoff recognized this as a necessary step. He split time between New York and his home in Florida, alternating relaxation and exercise, donating blood for surgery, being fitted for all the new devices to be placed into his leg. He also helped the Jets find and hire his replacement, Kevin O?Dea. Westhoff reported for surgery Feb. 19. It was only the second time he had been awake entering an operating room. He watched the team of surgeons prep, gazed at all the monitors and instruments. When Healey walked into the room, Westhoff announced: ?O.K., guys, the boss is here. Let?s get to work.? That is about all he remembers from the next two days. Doctors made an incision from his knee to his buttocks to place a titanium prosthetic femur in the leg. Westhoff joked that they used ?about a million and 10? stitches, which are scheduled to be removed Monday. Before the operation, his left leg was bent. Now it is straight. Before the operation, his left leg was about an inch and a half shorter than the right. Now they are nearly the same. The other day, Westhoff looked at X-rays from before and after surgery. He almost dropped them. If he had not lived with pain for so long, if he did not know that leg in the ?before? picture was his, Westhoff might not have believed it. ?It looked like an erector set,? he said. ?I did not expect it to be this dramatic. What this man and his team did, I?m just in shock.? Westhoff cannot say enough about Healey and Sloan-Kettering, where he remained for six days after the operation. In his wheelchair on the way to have X-rays one day, he saw children with cancer, parents with ashen faces. To see the way the hospital works, the lives it changes, Westhoff becomes emotional just talking about it. The first three days were the most difficult, John Westhoff said, especially for his father, who once briefly left the hospital after an operation to grab a sandwich. ?It affected him physically and in his personality,? John Westhoff said. By the time an old friend from the Dolphins, John Gamble, arrived at the hospital, John Westhoff could see in his father?s face that he had returned to normal. Instead of waiting to be told to take a walk, Westhoff would start on his own, muttering, ?I?m not waiting.? Last week, John Westhoff said: ?Now he?s completely back to his old self. He told me, ?In six weeks, I?ll be on a boat.? ? He had stayed with his father at the hospital. Calls poured in immediately, so many, so often, that John Westhoff barely slept the first night after the operation. Woody Johnson, the Jets? owner, phoned more than once, as did Coach Eric Mangini and General Manager Mike Tannenbaum. That meant a lot to me,? Mike Westhoff said. After more than a week at home, he did not rule out a return to coaching after this season, but that would depend on his recovery. ?I keep picturing myself at the end of this,? he said. ?I picture myself walking normally. I picture myself, at some point in time, playing golf. I?m not in a hurry. I have to go through the process.? He calls every day a small step forward. Much rehabilitation lies ahead. He is not allowed to put weight on his leg, so he uses crutches to get around. But each day brings improvement, as it did for all the special-teams players he used to coach. ?I just turned 60,? Westhoff said. ?And I can tell you this. I don?t see myself sitting around doing nothing. I see a world of possibilities.?
I second that. I'm glad Woody and Tangini have been in contact with him... that's a good sign we might get him back.
There is not an ounce of quit in that guy so I believe that to be very true after a year off recovering. :beer: Glad to hear everything went so well for him.
I heard he?ll stay with us as a ST-Consultant and that he was involeved in hireing O?Dea. I would love to get him back in 2009.
This is as good a thread as any to tell my little Westhoff story: I took my grandson to the last game of the season, the KC game. They had predicted rain, so the stands were fairly empty. Instead of sitting in the Mezz where I normally sit, I too the escalator up to the lower level and went around to the Jets side of the stadium and talked one of the security guards into letting us into the lower level over there. Once in, we parked ourselves on the 50 yard line at about Row 10 or so. Unbelievable seats at field level. Well, my grandson freaked out being able to watch the warmups (he even yelled something to Leon) and the game was a good one if you didn't mind seeing Clemens struggle like hell. But anyway, right before the game started, Westhoff came over to the 50 and stands right in front of us. He starts staring right at me (or so it seemed), but he must really have been looking at a family member or someone else he knew. I seemed to have eye contact with him for what seemed like a long time, but I'm sure it was someone immediately behind me. But the thing I will not forget is, he had a really strange expression on his face, like he was fighting back tears or something like that. He looked like he was getting emotional... just standing there staring at whoever this person was. Then he gave a "thumbs up" and a wave, still, with that sad but brave expression on his face. I found out later that the KC game was to be his last before undergoing surgery, and as Paul Harvey says, "And now I knew the rest of the story."
