TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Former Florida State football coach Bobby Bowden revealed he was successfully treated for prostate cancer in 2007, making the rounds Tuesday in New York to tell his story.
Although he had kept it secret for more than four years, Bowden said he believed it was now “my moral duty to bring it out in the open.”
Bowden, who turns 82 in early November, appeared on several morning television shows as a paid spokesman for a national prostate cancer education initiative called On The Line. He’s scheduled for more appearances today.
“This month is awareness month in regard to prostate cancer so we’re really putting the hammer down this week,” Bowden said. “We’ve got to get men aware of this.”
About 240,000 American men are diagnosed annually with prostate cancer and about 33,720 die from the disease, according to the National Cancer Institute. Only lung cancer kills more American men. It is frequently a slow-growing cancer.
“It’s so important that men start facing the facts that one in six over 40 are going to get it,” Bowden said. “That’s pretty dadgummed heavy numbers.”
Bowden was treated by one of his former players who was captain of the coach’s first team at FSU in 1976. Dr. Joe Camps, a urologist and surgical oncologist, implanted low-dose radiation seeds in Bowden’s prostate. Bowden is now cancer free.
The Associated Press
