As the old saying goes, it’s not how many times you get knocked down, but how many times you get up. Coach Eddie Courtney has certainly been a fighter throughout his career and always seems to find the silver lining in the worst of storms.
He valiantly battled Hodgkin’s disease in 2005 with courage that most would have had trouble finding. So much so, that in 2006 the Knoxville News Sentinel created the Eddie Courtney Courage Award, “an award that will be given each year to a player, coach or contributor to local high school football who has shown the spirit to face fear or danger with confidence, resolution and dignity.” Coach Eddie Courtney was the first ever recipient of the award which was named in his honor.
After a routine yearly physical this summer, his doctor noticed his PSA levels were slightly elevated. Coach visited a specialist who requested further testing and a biopsy. The result of the biopsy was a cancerous tumor contained to the prostate. Coach Courtney was one of more than 191,000 men that will be diagnosed with prostate cancer this year. While it was certainly not the results that anyone would hope for, the prognosis for this type of prostate cancer are good, especially since the tumor is contained in the prostate and had not spread.
Always wanting to act as quickly as possible, Coach Courtney was ready to do surgery the next day. Unfortunately, the body needs to heal after a biopsy, so six weeks after the biopsy was as soon as surgery could be performed.
That pushed the surgery date to Wednesday, September 16th, two days before the Admirals are set to open region play against Morristown-West. This could mark the second game since 1981 that Coach Eddie Courtney will not be on the Farragut sidelines, the most recent in 2008 at Soddy Daisy. Coach Courtney stated that his future is clear because he knows that it is in God’s hands.
**9/16/2020 11:00am UPDATE***
Coach Courtney is out of surgery and doctors are pleased at the outcome, as everything went as planned. Please continue to keep him and his family in your thoughts as the road to recovery begins.
