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This autumn unfolded as so many Septembers began for Don Meyer. Drills, videos, plays and the course lists of his team played paramount on his mind. The pattern followed him to Northern State University from his coaching days at Lipscomb and Hamline Universities. On the night of September 5th, Meyer, 63, was leading a team caravan to a hunting lodge not far from the Northern State campus in Aberdeen, S.D., for his annual preseason retreat for coaches, staff and players. Keeping the basketball family close was a winning strategy that brought success on the court and later in life. The later in life part was more important to Meyer than banners and trophies. He once told a colleague that when winning in life is the coach's goal for his young players, the wins on the court would come. And for him they have. As of 2008, Meyer is currently in second place on the all-time NCAA men's basketball coaches win list with 891 wins in his career, second only to Bobby Knight by a dozen victories.  Only 59 days after a car accident took his leg nearly took his life, Don Meyer is back with his team. But on the way to the retreat, the car Meyer was driving abruptly crossed the centerline on two-lane Highway 20, and sideswiped an oncoming truck. His car careened into a ditch, while other vehicles in the caravan attempted to avoid more collisions. His players and assistant coaches rushed to his aid, and while Meyer was conscious and alert until medical help arrived, he was bleeding profusely and in excruciating pain, with crushed ribs, multiple compound fractures, a ruptured spleen, and his leg shattered. While doctors performed emergency surgery to remove his spleen, they discovered malignant tumors in his liver and intestines. A week later when Meyer woke from an induced coma and informed of the cancer, the ever-intrepid coach made this statement: What's great about this is I would not have known about the cancer had I not had the wreck. God has blessed me with the one thing we all need which is truth. I can now fight with all of my ability. What I now ask is that everybody who believes in God would praise him for this discovery and pray to Him to give me the strength, patience and peace to be a man of God on this journey. I am looking forward to coaching this season and am forever thankful to my team who saved my life and the coaching staff who has stepped up to the plate. Even when surgeons had to amputate his leg below the knee a few days later, the coach was unfazed and joked that being in a wheelchair with one leg was the only way he'd ever coach a game sitting down. Just 59 days after the crash, Don Meyer was back where he belonged – on the Wachs Arena basketball court in Aberdeen at 5:45 in the morning, coaching the Northern State men's basketball team, with his wife Carmen nearby.
"Carmen and I were up at 3:30 this morning, changing the dressing on Little Buddy," said Meyer, pointing to what is left of his left leg that was amputated below the knee. "We have to do that three times a day." Meyer said he plans to go with the team on trips to pre-season exhibition games and return to as much coaching during the regular season as his rehabilitation and pending cancer treatments will allow. "Carmen will be changing the dressing on the bus," said Meyer with a chuckle. "That ought to make some of our guys a little queasy." The 63-year-old Meyer has shed more than 20 pounds yet keeps up with occupational and physical therapy daily. He tackles strength exercises and cardiovascular regimes. He's learning how to navigate in a wheelchair and walker, and how to balance without a lower leg. At the close of a therapy session, Meyer appears a little spent, and his voice is weaker and huffing. "It's just like practicing, only this time I'm a player," he said. John Budris is the editor of HOFN.com. He can be reached at
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