‘I’ve been given a great gift.’ Coach with terminal illness delivers powerful message
Outside of the state of Texas, Newton High School’s 21-16 victory over Canadian in the 3A Division II state football championship wouldn’t garner much interest.
However, the message from Newton coach W.T. Johnston will certainly resonate. In a postgame interview with Fox Sports Southwest, Johnston said he was told by doctors in August that he had eight months to live and wasn’t expected to coach the entire season.
CBS19 reported that Johnston “developed chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGHVD) in 2015 following a lung transplant. In GvHD, the donated bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cells view the body of the transplant recipient as foreign, and the donated cells/bone marrow attack the body, according to Cleveland Clinic.”
However, Johnston was on the sideline for the title game and he had an inspirational after the victory.
“This has been a long journey,” Johnston told Fox Sports Southwest. “We got together in August, right before we started practicing, and I told them I probably wouldn’t make it through the season. I was only given eight months to live, and I wanted them to be aware of what was going on. And then we got a little going, there was about two or three weeks during the season I didn’t think I was going to make it, and we talked about that. I always told them this was the last lesson I’m going to teach them.
“I’ve been around these guys and their dads and their mothers since 1991 and I told them this would be the last lesson I would ever teach them is how to live before you die. Where you put your strength and where you put your belief. The Lord has done so much for me, it’s unbelievable what Jesus has let me do and see through these kids.
“I tell everybody and they don’t understand this, I’ve been given a great gift, and people just don’t understand that. The gift I’ve been given is to see how my life could affect people before I die. These guys, they’ve touched my life and it’s been a mutual thing. I’ve been able to teach them a lesson that you don’t get to see most times. ... They talked about wanting to win for me, this is their time. I’ve had my time. This is the kids’ time. I told them, ‘Do it for your teammates, do it for you.’ ...”
Here is the full message: