Nike executive fights brain cancer

Chemotherapy took his hair. Every strand. And the brain cancer took him from his job as social media manager at Nike, months ago. But you watch Ted Winn in the corner of the coffee shop, holding his wife’s hand, rocking with laughter, and you would not know this is a man who has been told, “Go home and prepare for the end of your life.”

You don’t see “The End” in his smile.

You don’t hear it in his voice.

It’s just not anywhere. Including in his last name — Winn. And it’s certainly not in a series of coveted video recordings stored on his cellphone. But those files are not where this story begins, and so you must wait to hear about them.

When Winn — 48, who went to Astoria High School — tilts his head you see three small circular dents in his skull where surgeons have drilled and removed pieces of tissue for biopsies. You hear him talk about a three-year pile of hospital stays, including a 41-day stint. You learn about the experimental treatments, and CT scans, and MRIs. You hear about a silver-dollar-sized mass that grew to the size of a baseball, pressing into one hemisphere of his brain.

You hear the way brain cancer wreaked havoc on him — his speech, his sleep, his vision, hiccups, nausea, hallucinations — and you understand it all at once.

Winn is in a fight for his life.

“Central Nervous System B-cell Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma” is the medical term. That’s when a rare type of cancer cell forms in the brain tissue. He wants badly to beat it, not just for himself, but for his wife and two children. Maybe, for you, too. Even as doctors are now telling him he may not make the weekend.

“You know it’s not good,” his wife, Sandi, said, “when the oncologist gives you a hug.”

2 Both of Ted Winn’s children play lacrosse. Cooper is 16. He’s observant and thoughtful. He also plays nose guard on his high school football team. He’s watched out for his mother since he was a little boy. Rylee is 13. She’s in eighth grade and plays soccer. Those who know Rylee say she works hard to be successful in everything she attempts. She’s a perfectionist. Combined, they are perfect reflections of their mother and father, who met while students at Oregon State and made a life together.

“He was life of the party,” Sandi said of her first impression of Ted. “He’s a super social guy. Everybody knows him.”

It’s part of how he rose at Nike, going from answering phones and replacing defective products in 1995 to footwear testing and then to the director of social media. Employees there tell you Ted would start his morning at work by going desk to desk, greeting every employee in his department.

These days Ted makes breakfast for his family in the morning. It’s a simple thing. A husband, a wife, and their two children. Brain cancer attacks all over, though. His memory is foggy. For a while, he couldn’t remember what day it was or even how to figure it out. For a time, he kept sneezing, always in twos. He had a painful bout with hiccups that lasted two weeks. And in one year Ted spent 26 weeks in the hospital. But these days, the cereal, waffles or eggs and good conversation is good glue for the Winn family.

Ted asks how everyone slept. Then, the conversation turns to school assignments, tests and after-school activities. It’s the little questions, like “How was practice last night?” that act like bonding agents, pulling the family together for a few minutes before they scatter for the day.

“That fills his tank,” Sandi said.

The Winn family roots for Oregon State. They love the Trail Blazers, too. And there was joy this season in baseball, when the Los Angeles Dodgers, who Ted pulled for as a kid, made a run to the World Series. Steve Garvey was Ted’s favorite player. In the NFL, he pulls for the Rams. Sports have always been a part of the hub in the Winn family circle. Managing the social media accounts of the world’s leading sports sneaker and apparel company put him right where he always wanted to be — at the center of the sports universe.

But now being in control of things, even little things such as breakfast, feel important.

“When it comes to being sick like this,” Ted said, “I’ve been like a passenger. I don’t like to know the gory details. Knowing the details doesn’t help.”

The details he prefers come at the breakfast table on those mornings. School is waiting. A doctor’s appointment before lunch. There are plans to be made, and Ted also spends part of his day writing short notes to his children in the event he’s not there for the special moments of their lives. But that breakfast table features big moments he is there for. It’s laughter, and love, and an ugly condition such as CNS Lymphoma doesn’t get a seat at the table.

“I want more than anything to get back to life,” he said. “I want a sense of normalcy.”

3 Ted was at his desk on the Nike campus in the spring of 2014 when a colleague appeared in the doorway, and just stopped cold. Ted was asleep.

“That was so unlike me,” he said. “I wasn’t someone who could sleep even when I wanted to take a nap and all of a sudden I’m dozing off at work? I just looked up and saw my co-worker in the door and was like, ‘How long have I been out?!”

He was also confused, his wife said. Ted’s speech was slow, too. In a matter of days, what doctors hoped might just be pneumonia turned into a battery of tests and scans. Then, a scheduled surgery and a scramble to find a neurosurgeon and oncologist.

Ted’s closest friend, Erik Viukola, remembers the initial phone call with the awful news.

Said Viukola: “It’s Ted on the phone and he’s using an Arnold Schwarzenegger accent. You have to know Ted to get that. He says, ‘Erik, bad news. I have a brain TOOM-AH.’ That’s how he is, joking around.

“Even in that awful moment Ted was more worried about how the news would affect me and he wanted to soften the blow.”

Ted was in great shape before his diagnosis. He was working out regularly at Nike. He leaned on the personal trainers, such as former NFL defensive back Alex Molden, who are made available to work with employees. Ted ran faster, lifted more, and felt great. All this, doctors said, helped with the initial battle with cancer. Along with chemotherapy and medication, he attacked his condition with verve.

The cancer went away. Ted won. He went back to work. For 2 1/2 years, his brain scans were clear. This was a medical victory. Everyone celebrated it. Still, his wife, Sandi said, “Even when Ted was in remission I never felt like I could live without the worry.”

No one fights cancer alone. Even if they say so. It’s apparent in the way Sandi clutches her husband’s hand, or how she journals his progress, up late, writing thousands of words about a nightmare she wishes had just been a nap. She’s in it. So are their children. Also, friends, neighbors and family.

“When the cancer came back, I just said, ‘(expletive),’” said Sandi, through glassy eyes.

It returned twice, in two places, six months apart. And now the plan is to try experimental drugs that will buy him more time. And still, for Ted, in some small, meaningful ways, the fight is more than ever about being normal.

For example, at dinner last week, Ted ordered a beer. He can’t drink it. He took a sip.

“It’s fun to order one, though,” he said.

4 The first inspirational video message arrived by text and came from Los Angeles Rams punter Johnny Hekker. Ted knew him through a friend. Hekker, a former Oregon State player, looked into the camera and said among other things, “Stay strong Ted, we all love you.”

“That just lifted me up,” Ted said.

Then came another message, this one from Ryan Allen, who punts for the New England Patriots. Allen was born in Salem, and had once roomed with Hekker in Corvallis at Oregon State before he transferred to Louisiana Tech. He heard about Ted’s fight and so Allen sat recording a video and said, “The mind and body is a powerful thing. If you can beat it once, you can beat it again.”

Some colleagues at Nike have reached out to Ted with notes and encouragement. He loves to hear from them. Sometimes people don’t know what to say. He forgives those who don’t. And both Ted and Sandi said it’s uplifting when people let them know they’re thinking about them. In fact, Sandi gets a short written note of encouragement every week from a woman who had a fight with cancer herself.

Said Sandi: “She said somebody did that for her, and it helped her a ton to get through it.”

Those videos on Ted’s phone are his on-call encouragement. Technology has done that. People say all the time, “We’d be lost without our phones.” That’s Ted. Not because he wants to make a call. But because when he’s down, he pulls out the phone and watches those videos.

Oregon State men’s basketball coach Wayne Tinkle recorded a video message and sent it to Ted, telling him to keep fighting. Then, quarterback Derek Anderson of the Carolina Panthers sent one. So did former Rams running back Marshall Faulk. Then, Oregon Ducks point guard Payton Pritchard gave a heartfelt video speech for Ted. So did the entire Oregon State football team. The Beavers, in the locker room, cut a video message of encouragement. There have been well wishes from the Trail Blazers, and from Hollywood, and from politicians.

Why do they do it?

“I feel like if I can lift someone’s spirit, even in the smallest way, why not?” Anderson, a former Oregon State quarterback, said. “It takes just a little bit of your time.”

Pritchard, point guard of the Ducks basketball team, said, “It’s more about just knowing that you’re there and that you’re praying for him and him knowing that everyone supports him.”

Go. Fight. Winn.

That’s the rally cry now. It cuts across the Civil War rivalry. It spans across the country. Ted received a message from director and producer Steven Spielberg, who was overseas and told him he was thinking of him and to keep battling. Another came from former Vice President Al Gore, who quoted from the film “Chariots of Fire.”

Said Gore in his video message: “In Chariots of Fire, one of the characters says, ‘When I run I feel God’s pleasure.’ … feel God’s pleasure, Ted.”

5 Ted Winn knows his story will be about different things to different people. Some will relate to being a father, fighting and faced with leaving a family behind. Others will cast themselves as the significant other, smothered by an illness she can’t touch or see but wants so badly to punch in the face. Others will see the strong Winn children, or the supportive co-workers, or the celebrities, politicians and athletes who took a small moment to try to help lift a big soul.

“It’s that horrible dream that doesn’t seem to end,” Sandi said.

Ted squeezes her hand and drinks his coffee. There’s talk about the children. Also, about his disability pay. A family friend created a fund to help the family bridge medical bills and expenses. We all accept that there are no guarantees in life. But after you have holes drilled into your skull, you never see it quite the same. Brain cancer, remission, then cancer twice again. As much as the Winn family would love to organize the events of the last three years into something orderly, and chronological, their life in the last three years feels like a pile of random strands of yarn, unraveled on the table.

Then, Sandi speaks.

“Every day is a gift,” she said, “I realize now we should all be living that way.”

Ted is a father. A husband. A friend. He’s sick, too. But what he isn’t? Alone. The Winn family finds joy in the little things. Breakfast. Holding hands over coffee. Those simple video messages. And they look for hope in the bigger things.

Ted’s responding well to the experimental medicine. Doctors put a port in his body on Thursday with the hopes that he’ll have sustained success. He looks energetic and sounds optimistic. Instead of preparing for the end of life, this family is treating it like something else.

A beginning.

Ted was told he might not last the weekend, remember?

Said Ted: “Ya know, it just doesn’t feel to me like it’s going to be THIS weekend.”