Beck Had Tough Lesson in Life

Sometimes, teachers need to put away the textbooks or turn off the videos and give lessons from personal experiences. It can be the most powerful tool in education.

Chris Beck, the first-year baseball coach and a U.S. history teacher at Los Angeles Loyola, is qualified to lecture his students on the most sensitive of issues: life and death.

Seven years ago, he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He was a Stage IV cancer patient, with tumors growing in his chest, liver, spleen, neck and head.

“It wasn’t, ‘You have one year or six months to live,’ ” Beck said. “It was pretty much, ‘Your death certificate is written, start to prepare in that vein.’ ”

His second doctor was equally blunt.

“He said, ‘I’m not going to lie to you, I’m not going to play God. You’re in your 11th hour. If you don’t start chemotherapy today, you’ve got three weeks to live,’ ” Beck said.

Six weeks after chemotherapy, the tumors had disappeared.

“The doctor came in, ‘Man, I don’t know what to tell you. Your cancer is completely gone. It’s a miracle,’ ” Beck said.

Today at home against Cerritos Gahr, Beck will guide Loyola in his first game as varsity baseball coach. It will be a significant moment for the 26-year-old.

“Looking back, if you told me seven years ago, I’d be a teacher and coach, I wouldn’t have believed it,” he said.

Medicine cured him, but faith healed him.

There were many opportunities to lose hope. There were many obstacles preventing Beck from staying in baseball. Each time, he sought inspiration from his religious faith.

“The reality is we’re all going to die,” he said. “I felt my life would continue in a different realm, but it would go on. It gave me the confidence to battle. My motivation wasn’t fear of dying. My motivation was to do what I could do in a positive way.”

Beck was a pitcher at La Puente Bishop Amat in 1994 and received a scholarship to Loyola Marymount. But he drank too much, didn’t focus on his future and eventually flunked out.

By 1996, after his cancer was diagnosed, he was a restless, confused young man searching for structure and meaning.

“Maybe this is my answer and impetus to get over the hump,” he told himself.

After spending 17 days in the hospital following a stem cell rescue procedure, he started thinking about teaching and coaching.

He returned to Loyola Marymount in the fall of 1997, made the baseball team as a walk-on in 1999 and graduated a year later.

He hasn’t had a drink in seven years and has gotten through the early scares of cancer reoccurrence.

“Every time I’d get a cold or fever, I’d think, ‘Oh no, my cancer is back,’ ” he said. “Now, I know I get sick like anyone else and don’t worry.”

Beck uses his experiences to help his players.

“Cancer was easy,” he said. “Life is tough. My ability to put things in perspective as a result of my illness is probably the greatest thing I gained.”

Loyola’s players understand what their coach endured and how it changed him.

“I think his whole situation helps him to work harder and be more motivated to be successful,” second baseman Terry Walsh said.

Beck is teaching his players baseball fundamentals and preparing them for life after high school. He doesn’t bring up that he’s a cancer survivor too often, but it clearly affects the way he approaches each day.

“I convinced myself I was going to beat it,” he said. “It was kind of, ‘If I can beat this, it’s going to make me that much stronger.’ ”

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Eric Sondheimer can be reached at eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.