BY JON R. LaFOLLETTE | STAFF WRITER
MISSION — Thomas Lee takes his share of grief during track season. He’s a coach who never ran. He was a high jumper in high school, a specialist.
But Lee’s resume impresses. During tenures as the boys coach at Sharyland High and Sharyland Pioneer, he’s coached some of the Valley’s best athletes and taken relay teams to state. Despite helming a young Pioneer squad in its second season, the Diamondbacks won a district title and will see 10 athletes compete Friday and Saturday during the Region IV meet at Alamo Stadium in San Antonio.
Success is nothing new for Lee, but this year’s trip to regionals comes with an added sense of joy and pride given everything he’s overcome. Just a few months ago, he was a dead man walking, clueless to how close he was to the grave.
‘SOMEONE’S LOOKING OUT FOR YOU’
Lee was never supposed to be on an operating table.
Only a few days prior, he played basketball and spent an afternoon on the golf course in the August heat. Health wasn’t on his mind, but rather the upcoming football and volleyball seasons at Pioneer, where he is the athletic coordinator.
Nonetheless, there Lee was, laid out at the McAllen Heart Hospital with his life in the hands of people unknown to him only 72 hours beforehand.
What brought him there was a back-to-back encounter with death and a stroke of luck. After witnessing a family member collapse and die at a church moments before another family member’s funeral service was set to begin, a mortified Lee volunteered to undergo a stress test for his heart.
“I saw my 2-year-old daughter, and it’s another 15 years before she leaves high school,” Lee said. “I wanted to get it done for peace of mind.”
Though Lee, 46, completed the exercises, he failed the test. Doctors were concerned by abnormal spikes on the EKG and ordered Lee to undergo a catheterization, injecting fluids into his body to check for any irregularities. What they found was devastating.
Lee had two clogged arteries in his heart, including the “widow maker,” the term that refers to blockage of the heart’s main artery. Heart attacks caused by the condition often strike without warning and in fatal fashion. Doctors said Lee’s artery was 80 percent blocked.
“This doesn’t happen very often,” Lee said. “People don’t just (get tested) on a whim and then you find something. But the doctor said, ‘Someone was looking out for you.’”
Two days later, Lee underwent a double bypass surgery. Over six hours, doctors cut through flesh, muscle, sinew and bone to get to Lee’s ailing organ, only to stop it and detour his blood through a machine to keep him alive.
The doctors swore it would be a routine procedure, but Lee couldn’t help but ponder other outcomes. Just before slipping out of consciousness, he thought how his family — including four children — would react if he never woke up. It was easy to contemplate. Lee knows the feeling well.
BACK TO WORK
In a sense, Lee emulates his father, David, a football junkie who moved his family in 1983 to Mission where he coached at Mission High. Lee describes himself as a typical coach’s son: a gym rat who always envisioned playing for the old man.
But colon cancer ended the father-son tandem, claiming David’s life at the age of 39. Despite being only a sophomore in high school, Lee became the man of the house. His mother was a secretary, and his father’s life insurance policy helped the family get by. It was through football that Lee afforded college, playing cornerback on scholarship at Rice University.
Lee returned to the Mission area and began coaching various positions in 1994, coaching football at Mission High from 2002 to 2008. Though coaching is in his DNA, he was weary before this sports season.
“I started thinking about how I was going to make it back to the track,” Lee said. “How am I going to get out there in the heat? How am I going to stand there for eight hours?”
Indeed, the mere act of standing was a gargantuan undertaking in the weeks following his surgery. Once a standout athlete and beacon of independence, simply breathing brought stabbing pains. Lee had to sleep in an uncomfortable and upright position, and required assistance to walk.
“He couldn’t lift anything over five pounds, which is just about everything,” Lee’s wife, Kristie, said. “He couldn’t lift up his daughter, he couldn’t carry anything. It was hard for him to get up just from a sitting position, so I had to help him stand up, and that was probably for at least a month.”
By October, Lee regained some semblance of normalcy, going into work on a part time basis and slowly resuming his duties as coordinator and coach. Though he says he briefly contemplated giving up coaching, he says being around the kids hastened the recovery process, physically and mentally.
Lee has achieved familiar goals this season, but they’ve come with a renewed disposition. He admits to not sweating life’s smaller details, and says dwelling on the big picture is where he finds life’s greatest joys.
His new vibe is noticed at home, too.
“He’s had times in his life when he was extremely concerned with wins and losses,” Kristie said. “That’s not really what life’s about. Going through something like that makes you realize what’s important: God, family and the people that love you. He knew that all along, but he’s paying more attention to it now.”