Remembering Sal Aunese: Sal Aunese Loses Brave Battle
Originally Published In
The Rocky Mountain News
Sept. 24, 1989
By B.G. Brooks
Quarterback Sal Aunese, the consummate model of courage for his University of Colorado teammates and friends, lost his 5 1/2-month battle with cancer last night.
The 21-year-old Buffs senior died at University Hospital about 9:15 p.m., according to hospital spokesman Brad Bawmann. Bawmann did not know whether family members were with Aunese at the time.
Aunese leaves behind a 6-month-old son, Timothy, and is also survived by his mother, Towiva; his father, Mata, and several other relatives.
A press conference was scheduled for late night at the hospital, at which further details were to be released. Efforts also were being made to locate CU Coach Bill McCartney, and other members of the team. Many were in attendance yesterday at the wedding of Buffs linebacker Terry Johnson.
"Sal Aunese was an inspiration to his teammates and indeed to all of us during his courageous fight against the toughest of opponents," CU president Gorgon Gee said.
Aunese was hospitalized last Sunday because of a buildup of fluid in his lungs and shortness of breath. A tube was inserted in his chest as that time to drain some of the fluid.
However, initial expectations that he might be released this weekend vanished late in the week, as it became clear Aunese was still having difficulty breathing.
CU team physician Dr. Wayne Gersoff announced yesterday morning the Aunese's status had been downgraded from fair to serious, but did not elaborate. The next medical bulletin was the one announcing his death.
Aunese first was discovered to be ailing early this spring, and the team announced that a respiratory illness would force him to miss at least the first week of spring practice.
After an initial diagnosis of pneumonia, then sarcoidosis (a thickening of the lung tissue that results in breathing difficulty), Aunese was diagnosed in late March as having a rare form of inoperable stomach cancer that had spread to his lungs and lymph nodes.
Doctors said Aunese's form of cancer was more common in persons of middle age or older, and at a news conference at University Hospital on March 30, they said his life expectancy depended on his reaction to chemotherapy.
Initially, Aunese did remarkably well, and his fight for life and ambitious plans for a limited comeback in football drew national attention. In April, he received an inspirational card from President Bush and his wife, Barbara. When he was hospitalized in September, he received a supportive telephone call from former President Ronald Reagan.
Throughout his illness, the responses poured in from many nationally recognized sports figures. But Aunese wanted it made clear that every card, letter and message was of equal importance.
Despite missing all of CU's spring drills, Aunese dreamed of returning to the field with his teammates when they opened pre-season practice in early August. And early on, those dreams seemed plausible.
DOCTORS HAD HOPED Aunese's age, physical condition and competitive spirit would give him an edge of recovery that some cancer patients lack. Aunese virtually cruised through his early chemotherapy, showing few adverse effects from the treatments that doctors hoped would send his cancer into remission.
After an initial weight loss before his cancer was diagnosed, Aunese regained just over 20 pounds. What's more, the cancerous cells in his lungs showed signs of decreasing.
And, said those closest to him, his spirit was never waned.
A close friend reported that late in CU's spring semester, Aunese kidded with fellow students about the severity of his illness. After several victorious games of pool on campus, he joked that if his opponents couldn't beat him when he was sick, how could they ever hope to beat him when he got well?
And prior to CU's spring game, when he spied several placards on campus urging students to make donations to a "Sal Aunese Fund," he impishly implored a passerby "to give all you can . . . This guy needs the money."
Aunese attended several of the Buffs' spring scrimmages, often waving encouragement to his young replacement to his young replacement, sophomore Darian Hagan. At halftime of the spring game, Aunese, wearing a long black coat and a Los Angeles Raiders cap, was presented a chair fashioned in the form on a CU helmet.
Seated in it, the beaming Aunese was carried by his teammates to the sidelines, where he thanked them and promised, "See you next fall."
But in late June, after Aunese had returned to Boulder from a brief trip home to California, doctors intensified his chemotherapy. It was then Aunese began feeling the effects of his treatment, as well as the toll taken by the disease. Gersoff said a three-pronged battle was being waged: Aunese's tumor was fighting his system, the chemotherapy was fighting the tumor, and Aunese was fighting the chemotherapy.
The tentative plan for Aunese to join his teammates when they opened fall drills had to be canceled.
In early August, Aunese was admitted to the University Hospital after his white blood cell count was diagnosed as dangerously low. He remained there a week, and during that time began receiving radiation therapy as well as the chemotherapy.
WHEN THE BUFFS opened fall practice, Aunese paid them a visit. Driven onto the practice field, Aunese met with his teammates for no more than three minutes. He wanted to address the team, but was overcome by emotion.
"He just gets that way when he's around us," said former roommate Jeff Campbell, a senior wide receiver.
At that opening-day practice, Campbell said Aunese has made the Buffs' game against Oklahoma on Oct. 28 in Norman a personal goal; Aunese wanted to be well enough to make the trip with the Buffs. Aunese, said Campbell, had brought CU tantalizingly close to beating the Sooners last season (CU lost 17-14), and the Buffs players wanted Aunese to be in Norman for this year's game.
"If you know Sal, you know he'll be there," said Campbell, who called the quarterback "the epitome of inspiration. He lets you know you can always fight harder. He's the one who brought this team together."
Two weeks later, when the Buffs held their final scrimmage of fall drills, Aunese visited his teammates again. In a golf cart chauffeured by his 300-pound cousin Tamasi Amituani, a CU freshman who is ineligible to play this season, Aunese greeted his friends and even led the Buffs in their traditional post-practice cheer.
"You talk about a warrior," said CU coach Bill McCartney. "Our guys love him and hurt with him and suffer with him. His presence (at practice) means a lot."
In a team meeting before CU opened its 1989 season against Texas, the players voted Aunese the Buffs' honorary captain for '89. The left sleeves of their game jerseys reflected their admiration for their stricken leader. In the middle of a gold stripe, "SAL" was printed in block letters.
From a private booth near Folsom Field's press box, Aunese watched the Buffs dismantle Texas 27-6 in the opener. He talked with his successor, Hagan, before the game but did not address the entire team.
Aunese also attended the next two home games, taking great pride, said those closest to him, in the Buffs' lopsided wins over Colorado State (45-20) and Illinois (38-7) that started their ascent in the top 10 rankings. In what McCartney called "a class thing to do," Illinois brought Aunese an Illini banner, a large signed card, and several autographed footballs.
But his teammates, pointing to his private booth when they assembled at midfield for the coin toss, gave him something far more meaningful-a victory in the last CU game he would see.
Aunese came to CU as a highly recruited quarterback form the Vista High School in the San Diego suburb of Oceanside. He sat out his freshman season at CU, failing to meet the standards of Proposition 48. But once eligible as a sophomore, Aunese lived up to the glitzy billing that planted him high on the recruiting lasts of several Big Eight and Pac-10 schools.
"When you put somebody in a tough bind and have to count on them, that's when Sal's spirit shined brightest," said Les Miles, now a staff member at the University of Michigan who recruited Aunese for CU in 1985. "He was the ultimate team player. He wanted to win it for his buddies. That's what happened at Vista, and it happened again at Colorado."
And once Aunese got the chance at CU, it happened very quickly. Replacing the injured Mark Hatcher in the first quarter against Washington State in 1987, the 5-foot-11, 195-pound Samoan rushed for 185 yards and a touchdown on 22 carries in CU's 26-17 win.
AFTERWARD, then-Cougars coach Dennis Erickson asked, "Who was that guy?"
The next week, in CU's fourth game, Aunese became the starter and led CU to 7-4 record that year and an 8-4 mark in 1988. He was voted the Big Eight's newcomer-of-the-year as a sophomore, and as a junior his statistics were among the best any Buffs player has compiled at his position.
His left-handed passes accounted for 1,004 yards-the most for a CU quarterback since 1984-amd his 1,401 yards total offense where the most at CU in a decade.
But in 1988, Aunese was perhaps remembered best for his direction of late comebacks in critical situations. In three of the Buffs' first four games, he engineered victorious last-minute drives as CU beat Iowa, Oregon State and Colorado State.
Comebacks had become his trademark, and last April, during the spring game tribute, CU quarterbacks coach Gary Barnett told Aunese and the Folsom Field audience, "You're going to pull this one out just like the other ones."
Sal Aunese died trying.