Coach Finds Strength in Basketball to Battle Rare Cancer : Sports: Disease has left Jason Ferguson penniless and near death, but his determination rallies his players.

There are many mornings when his body resists instructions to move, when the thought of eating nauseates him.

Battling a rare cancer has taken 60 pounds off an already thin frame. Most of the time, he is too weak to walk.

Yet Jason Ferguson, 24, must find his way to the basketball court. The head basketball coach at Costa Mesa High School refuses to stop. Even if he must coach from a wheelchair. Even if an assistant must relay his whispered commands to the team.

“Basketball is my life,” Ferguson said. “If I didn’t have basketball, you are talking about a man just sitting around his house day to day to day thinking all the time about all the negative things that can happen with cancer.”

His cancer, known as Wilm’s tumor, is most often found in children younger than 5. It started in a kidney and spread to his lungs. The disease can be fatal unless it is detected early and treated with chemotherapy and radiation or surgery.

It has left Ferguson penniless. He is treated at County-USC Medical Center in Los Angeles because he cannot afford to go anywhere else, he said. No longer able to work, he quit his job for a company that promotes basketball tournaments. A part-time coaching stipend of $2,200 a year can’t compare with the $30,000 in medical expenses he has incurred.

Ferguson’s plight has rallied fellow coaches, school administrators and even opposing players. The Costa Mesa basketball booster club has raised about $5,000. The Laguna Beach basketball team held a free-throw shooting contest this month, raising an additional $1,000. A church has adopted Ferguson for the holidays, providing him food and clothing.

“He’s a superman,” said booster club President Matt Montoya. “He’s fighting the cancer and it’s amazing how the kids have been fighting for him.”

Players say they are inspired by the coach. “Seeing him come back after a couple of days in the hospital gave us an extra lift in practices,” said senior guard Mike Montoya, Matt’s son. “He is the heart of the team and his determination is overwhelming.”

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That Ferguson is still here, let alone coaching, is extraordinary. Twice in the last five months friends have scurried to make funeral arrangements after doctors gave Ferguson less than a week to live. In June, they said they couldn’t do anything more for him, and in September, his kidneys failed. He regularly checks into the hospital for chemotherapy treatments; his last one was two weeks ago.

There are few family members to fall back on. He sees his sister regularly, but his mother died of breast cancer two years ago and he sees his brother and father only occasionally. His relationship with Jana Horine, to whom he became engaged shortly before the cancer was diagnosed, has been severely strained.

“She’s 24, a young lady. To find out that her fiance has cancer, that is tough,” Ferguson said. “I was so active before and, with this kind of disease, you can’t be that way. She’s tried to be there, but it’s a thing where I can’t do much for her.”

“He’s amazing,” Horine said. “But it’s hard for me to see him like he is now. I don’t know how to deal with him.”

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He was coaching when the first problem sign emerged, a sharp pain in his back during a game in January. When blood was found in his urine the next day, he sought medical help.

UC Irvine Medical Center doctors told Ferguson during his first visit they believed he had cancer for several years, and that it was spreading.

“He just held me,” Horine said.

Chris Freeman, Costa Mesa’s junior varsity coach, has known Ferguson since their days at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, where Ferguson was a top player in the late 1980s. They share an apartment near Costa Mesa High.

Freeman doubles as his roommate’s personal aide and was at Ferguson’s side during a recent tournament, relaying the coach’s orders to his players.

“It seems like these things always happened to the nicest guys, not to guys who are out doing bad,” Freeman said.

Ferguson’s players helped persuade school officials this fall that they wanted him to stay as coach.

“We talked to the kids about cancer and life and death and about the pressure and turmoil that one goes through in this situation,” said Jerry Howell, the school’s athletic director. “In fact, the kids did not have any problems with Jason staying on. They were very understanding.”

Perhaps they realize how far the team has come since Ferguson arrived four years ago. Fresh from coaching the junior varsity team at Workman High in the City of Industry, Ferguson was hired to coach the freshmen at Costa Mesa. He thought the move to Orange County would bring him closer to better players and his ultimate goal of a college job.

“He had a knack for the game that others don’t have,” said Workman Coach Rick Cook. “All I had to do was tell him what needed to be done, and he would get it done the right way. He was a great leader and he didn’t mind telling people what they were supposed to do.”

Costa Mesa needed lots of help. The practice gym had bad lighting and a warped floor. The players’ attitudes were in even worse shape.

When Ferguson met them for the first time, he said he expected to win all 21 games. Players burst into laughter.

But Ferguson has made a difference. The basketball program is stronger. He established a study hall for players each afternoon and made it mandatory. Fiery halftime talks became the norm. Players became believers.

“He’s not just all about basketball,” said guard Donnie Ogo, a senior. “He’s made us good, all-around people.”

Last season, Ferguson’s first as varsity coach, the Mustangs won three Pacific Coast League games and eight overall. In three previous seasons, Costa Mesa had a total of three league victories.

“I think they saw that I loved teaching kids basketball. That’s something they never experienced before, even in other sports,” Ferguson said. “I think they could see that I really cared about them as people, not just as players.”

On a recent afternoon, Ferguson made his way to Costa Mesa to meet with his players. To reach them, he had to be wheeled by Freeman through a locker room and out the back door of the school’s main gym.

Ferguson, wearing a dark green sweatsuit, gathered his seven varsity players around him. He spoke in little more than a whisper. The players, sitting on the floor around him, soaked in every word.

“Basketball is all about fun,” Ferguson said, leaning down so he could be heard. “Go out and enjoy it. Don’t take any off-court problems onto the floor and don’t worry about things you have no control over.”