Thursday, January 01, 2004
BY STEVE POLITI

Star-Ledger Staff
On a cold winter morning, hours before sunrise, the closest living relative to the most famous football coach in the world shot up in bed.  His eyes rolled back into his head. His mouth started to foam. He violently  fell back to a supine position and began convulsing, shaking the bed frame loudly enough to awaken everyone in his Short Hills home.

A strange and frightening noise came out his mouth -- not words, but a coarse and constant humming. The faster he shook, the louder the humming became until, just as suddenly as it started, everything stopped.

Don ParcelIs was still again. "Oh my God," his wife told their teenage son after racing to call 911. "I think your father just died."

Miles away and comfortably asleep, Bill ParcelIs had no way of knowing he nearly lost his brother for the second time.

CLOSER TOGETHER

From his lean years as an assistant making $13,000 a year, through his ascent to Giants head coach and his two Super Bowl victories, through his next three stops with the Patriots, Jets and, finally, the Dallas Cowboys, Bill ParcelIs always could count on his younger brother.

Bill ParcelIs is a man with few close friends, a public person who has worked hard to keep his life away from football private, shielding his former wife and his children from the media. Friends have come and gone, assistant coaches have moved along, but Don was always there, for career advice, for a good laugh, for friendly competition and for support.

"That's blood right there," ParcelIs, 62, said in a recent phone interview.  His Cowboys play the Carolina Panthers in a first-round playoff game on Saturday night. "He is my closest brother, and I love him very much. We're 20 months apart, age wise. He is one of the closest people I have in this world."

The early-morning seizure, which took place two years ago this month, strengthened that relationship. Don was always the healthier of the two, the one who survived serious combat wounds in Vietnam. Bill was the one who retired from his dream job with the Giants to have open-heart surgery.

This time, Don ParcelIs was sick. He had a brain tumor -- the most aggressive kind, a grade-IV glioblastoma.

As he recuperated from his first surgery, not knowing what the future may hold with chemotherapy and radiation treatment, Don sounded like the coach in the family, and not the retired banker, when he made a promise to his older brother.

He vowed to fight the disease with all the energy he had. He promised to get a winning team of doctors. And, finally, he said the words any football coach loves to hear the most: "We're going to win."

It was a claim the statistics did not support. Every year, more than 17,000 Americans are diagnosed with a primary brain tumor. Newly diagnosed patients with glioblastoma usually are given 12 months or less to live. An estimated 60 percent die in the first year, 90 percent by the second year.

Only a handful make it past three years. "All the people I know who had brain tumors, they all died," Don ParcelIs said. "I'm not afraid of dying. What made me nervous, I was afraid not being there for my family. Not being there for my children as I was growing up.

That's what scared me.

"But I also felt it wasn't going to get me. I just never believed that this was the way it was going to end."

GOING SEPARATE WAYS

It started, six decades ago, in Oradell. Charles and Ida ParcelIs had three sons. Bill was the oldest. Don was the middle child. Doug, now a high school coach and teacher in Ramsey, was 10 years younger.

Closest in age, Bill and Don would compete in everything -- often getting each other in trouble. One afternoon, Bill was the cowboy and Don was the Indian, chasing each other around the front yard. Bill hid behind a shrub with his six-shooter. Don came running up the lawn, one hand holding the tomahawk, the other hand cupping his mouth.

"WOO WOO WOO WOO WOO!"

Then the tomahawk was in flight, tumbling end over end at its target. Bill wisely jumped out of the way. The picturesque bay window did not. Before all the glass hit the ground, the two boys were running for their lives from their mother. When caught, they quickly blamed each other."! thought my mother was going to kill me," Don said with a laugh.

Don liked to save money. Bill liked to spend it. Don hid his cash around the house, under dresser drawers and mattresses, so he had it when he needed it. Of course, Bill always needed it -- and always found the stash.

"One day Bill asked me if I knew where Don hid his money, and I ratted him out," Doug ParcelIs said. "He stole it and gave me a quarter as a reward. Don was mad, but he was used to it, too."

The family always vacationed at the Jersey Shore, usually in Sea Girt, with their parents finding a garage apartment they could rent near the beach. Bill framed four black-and-white childhood pictures for Don one year. In one, the two boys are standing near the surf, the pudgy older brother wearing his shorts well above his navel.

"We used to spend a lot of time in the ocean, just swimming and riding waves," Bill said. "We did that a lot. We'd spend day after day after day, riding waves. We were very close. I think we enjoyed growing up together."

The two went separate ways after high school: Bill to Wichita State to pursue a career in athletics, Don to West Point to play football. The latter graduated from the military academy just in time for the Vietnam War.

One night, during an operation in the jungle, his brigade came under heavy mortar attack. He tried to hide in his foxhole, but he still got hit. Both his legs, bleeding badly, needed tourniquets. He knew he would not survive the night, but the rescue helicopters could not get to him.

Finally, one made it through. He was taken to an aid station, where he prayed he would make it through triage. His big brother got the news days later, and never felt more helpless.

I'D LIKE 20 MORE YEARS

Don spent four months rehabilitating his injuries in Japan and, when he got healthy, was sent back to Vietnam. The near-death experience gave him a perspective on life that helped after his cancer diagnosis. "You know, I lived longer than I thought I would have anyway," he said. "I could have been dead at 22 or 23."

He lived a full and healthy life - until recently. He knew something was wrong. He started to hear music in his head, which often was followed by a strange metallic taste in his mouth and then, most troubling, an anxiety attack.

 On Jan. 23, 2002, Don ParcelIs felt woozy while driving to meet friends for lunch and pulled over to the side of the road. The spell quickly faded, and when he fell asleep that night, the episode was forgotten.

The next thing he remembers was getting carried down the stairs of his new house on a stretcher, looking up to see the concerned looks on the faces of his wife, Elaine, and two of his teenage sons, Chris and Dan. An MRI that night found the tumor. A few days later, at St. Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, he underwent surgery.
 

"I woke up with the worst headache I've ever had," ParcelIs said, "and there wasn't enough morphine or codeine to make it go away, either." The doctors could not remove the entire tumor, so his treatment continued with radiation and chemotherapy. ParcelIs, meanwhile, started to do some research. He quickly grew wary of an attitude from doctors that he was up against an unbeatable foe.

"Every time I asked, 'Are we going to beat this?' they would tell me, 'Well, it's hard. We can delay it,'" ParcelIs said. "I said, 'Can we delay it for 20 years? If we can delay it for 20 years, I'll be very happy.'" A friend told ParcelIs about the Brain Tumor Center at Duke University. Soon after, he saw a "60 Minutes" segment about new developments in brain tumor treatment and called the producer. He asked the man where he would go for treatment, and received the same answer: Duke.

He and Elaine immediately flew down to Durham, N.C., for a biopsy -- a painful procedure in which a cage was screwed to his forehead, allowing doctors to drill a hole in the side of his head to take a sample of the tumor.

"I said, 'Do I have to be awake for this? This is unpleasant. My whole head is vibrating,' ParcelIs said. "(The doctor) said, 'Do you have a plate in your head?' I said, 'You're asking me? You just did the MRI!'"

The biopsy results came back quickly. "This doesn't look good," his doctor told him. "We need to do a second surgery right away."

ON TOP FOR ONCE

One day in 1993, Don ParcelIs was sitting behind his desk at First Fidelity. He was a man on top of his profession, a successful businessman who climbed the corporate ladder to become a wealthy bank president. He was feeling pretty good about his life.

Then his phone rang. It was his brother. 

"You know, it's just not right," Bill said.

"What?" Don replied.

"You were always the good kid," Bill continued. "You did the right thing.  You went to West Point. You fought in Vietnam. You worked hard all these years to get into a position to do well in your career."

 "Yeah, so?"

 "I was the P.E. major from Wichita State, the guy who bounced around from job to job all those years, and I just signed a $5 million contract to coach the New England Patriots," Bill said. "It just doesn't seem right."
 

 This is the way it always was between the two brothers. It was a sibling rivalry at his highest level, one businessman and one coach, both supportive but still playfully trying to outdo the other guy.

Don, the younger brother, had the quick start. After his decorated tour of duty in Vietnam, he started his banking career as an assistant vice president with Citicorp. From there, he move from one job to another until, in 1996, he was appointed president of First Union North after a merger with First Fidelity.

The merger sent him home with a huge paycheck -- and bragging rights.

"Don made about $5 million on that deal," Doug ParcelIs said. "I called Bill that night and told him, 'Well, it looks like you may have been knocked out of the top spot. I think maybe Don has more cash than you.'"

It wasn't the first time Don had the upper hand. There was the conversation at the kitchen table in 1983, when Bill brought good news to his mother about a new job. His mother looked at Bill, then looked at Don, and sighed.

"When are you going to get a real job like your brother?" she asked.

Bill had just been named Giants head coach.

INSPIRATION TO OTHERS

Don ParcelIs second surgery removed most of the tumor. Once again, ParcelIs
started chemotherapy and radiation treatment. He had days when he just  wanted to crawl into bed and sleep, but he did not want his kids to see him that way.

Phone calls from his older brother came frequently.

"Bill was great. He was very supportive," Elaine ParcelIs said. "He said to me, 'If you want me to come out there and be with you, I will.' He offered to do anything he could to help us."

Four months ago, Don flew back to Durham for another MRI. The doctor showed
him the image.

"You see this brown spot right here?" he said. "That's where your tumor used to be."

"What do you mean, used to be?" ParcelIs replied.

"It's gone."

"It's gone?"

"It's gone."

He knows enough about cancer now to stay cautious with his optimism. He also knows his story is an inspirational one for others. The American Cancer Society named Don ParcelIs its Man of the Year for 2004, and he will work as a spokesman, counseling other people with brain tumors. In July, he will be honored at a charity golf tournament at Canoe Brooke Country Club in Summit.

When he is not attending his sons' high school games or watching his brother's Cowboys on television, he is often taking calls from people recently diagnosed with the disease. He tells them to find the right doctor. He tells them to treat the disease right away. And most of all, he tells them that it is not a death sentence.

He is living proof.

"I never felt sorry for myself," Don ParcelIs said. "I never whined about it. I never asked the question, 'Why me?' It is what it is.

"I decided if this was it, I was going kicking and scratching to the end. Bill liked that attitude. He said, 'I'm with you. I'm with you all the way.'  I really believe you can't lay down. You can't quit. I never figured out how to do that."