Jeff Hansen's love story with basketball helps him attack illness

Jeff Hansen's love story with basketball helps him attack illness
Jeff Hansen, an assistant basketball coach at Newport High School, has had a heart transplant and needs a kidney transplant. He says he feels best when he's on the court.

Steve Kelley / THE SEATTLE TIMES

BELLEVUE — The dialysis bag sits on the dash board of Jeff Hansen's car, a tube runs from the bag into a catheter that has been inserted into the left side of his abdomen.

As he drives across the I-90 bridge headed for basketball practice, Hansen, an assistant coach at Newport High School, feels nauseous, a byproduct of the kidney disease FSGS (Focal Segmented Glomerulosclerosis) from which he suffers.

This is dialysis-on-the-run, a trademark of Hansen's still-brimming life. It is his way of attacking his illness. His way of saying that he has too much going on right now to stop and feel sorry for himself.

Most days he doesn't have time to rest in a recliner and watch TV, or catch a nap while he endures his treatment. There is a season to prepare for, another practice to run. And, the truth is, the only hours when Hansen feels truly healthy are the hours he spends in the Newport gym.

Basketball is the one medication that works and has no side effects.

"As I drive over the bridge I start feeling better," Hansen, 36, said this week, sitting in a coffee shop in the U District. "And by the time I get to the gym, everything just evaporates. I feel great. My mind is at ease. I don't think about anything but basketball."

Even though he has an illness that threatens his life, Hansen has this wonderfully infectious appetite for living. And he has a message he wants to pass on to the players he coaches.

"I try to tell the kids that, at their age, they go through things with family or friends," he said. "They face bullies and all kinds of stress at school, and I tell them that you have to use sports and basketball as an escape from that.

"Practices and games are your opportunity to leave all that stuff behind. Hopefully I can lead by example and they can get out of basketball the same things that I've gotten out of it."

Last season, Hansen called Newport's new coach Steve Haizlip and asked if there were any assistant coaching openings. Hansen, who played for Newport, was a good friend of the family and had coached one of Haizlip's brothers on a sixth-grade team.

Hansen was honest about his illness.

"I told Steve I didn't know how much time I could devote to practice," he said. "I told him I didn't even know if I would be around, if I would be alive."

He also told Haizlip, "I don't want my illness to be my identity. I want to be thought of as a good coach, a good mentor and a good guy."

Haizlip didn't think twice about his hire.

"It never even came to my mind that he would be a distraction," Haizlip said before Wednesday's practice. "I told Jeff as long as he could coach and teach the kids life lessons, we wanted him on the staff.

"We're all so fortunate to be healthy and to be able to play basketball and Jeff is a great teacher of the kind of lessons we want the kids to learn. He's also a great teacher for me and a good coach."

Hansen's is a complicated love story. He didn't start playing basketball until 9th grade because he thought he was too skinny. Once he got in the gym, however, he fell hard for the game.

"That thwap, the sound the ball makes when it goes through the net, there's nothing sweeter than that sound," he said.

Eventually he became the 12th man on the Newport varsity. At the end of lopsided games, fans would chant his name, "Han-sen, Han-sen, Han-sen." He would come in firing threes, his specialty.

The final game of his senior season, he made four straight free throws that he jokes were the difference in a 40-point win over Bellevue. The students stormed the court and hoisted him on their shoulders. A photo of that moment is the picture on his Facebook page.

"Basketball has given me a great happiness," he said. "I'm honored to walk on the hardwood every chance I get. I remind myself that there are people out there who can't even do that. I feel lucky to have been through everything I've been through and still be able to shoot hoops and be around the sport that I love. It's unbelievable to me. It brings me so much joy. I can't imagine not doing it."

Now back to the complicated portion of this story.

After Hansen graduated from Western Washington, he began having problems breathing. He would lie in bed hyperventilating. Finally he was diagnosed with congestive heart failure (idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy). His heart was two-thirds larger than a normal heart. It wasn't pumping enough blood. He needed a transplant.

Hansen waited two-and-a-half years before he put his name on a list for the transplant.

"I wanted to hold on to my heart as long as I could," he said. "I was coaching a sixth-grade team and I was having more good days than bad."

Inevitably his condition worsened and on Sept. 16, 2006, he was in the hospital, hooked up to a 24-hour I.V. drip, when a nurse entered his room, told him to stop eating breakfast and prepare to get his new heart.

Mike Watts had called his wife Debbie, who was nine months pregnant, to tell her he would be home in an hour.

A police officer at Malmstrom Air Force Base, he was returning from training in Wyoming, heading for Great Falls, Mont., when another driver lost control of her car. The collision killed Watts. An organ donor, Watts' heart became Hansen's heart.

"I have so much gratitude for what he did for me," Hansen said. "He gave me a second chance at life."

While he was recovering, Hansen made a bucket list. He discovered how much more he wanted to do with his life.

He wanted to own a dog, wanted to be certified as a scuba diver, learn to surf, fly in a helicopter, return to coaching and be part of a staff that made it to the state high school tournament.

Despite another setback and the need for a second organ transplant, one-by-one Hansen is accomplishing his goals.

But last season, Newport narrowly lost back-to-back, winner-to-state games to Ballard and Arlington. Hansen was too sick to attend those games.

"We used it as our motivational speech," Haizlip said. "Do this for Jeff. We weren't able to do it last year. But this year, well, Jeff always talks about, 'It's never about me,' so we want the kids to think about that, to win for their school and their teammates and their coaches.

"Jeff has such a calmness about him. He gives me a different perspective. It's amazing to be around him. He teaches us about sacrifices and not feeling sorry for ourselves. And he brings such a love of the game to the court every day."

Before he left the team last season, Hansen addressed the players. Standing behind him, Haizlip fought back tears.

"You never know when this can be taken away from you," Hansen told them. "So you have to play every game like it's your last."

Doctors still don't know why his heart failed or why his kidneys are quitting. The best guess is that some virulent virus attacked both.

Hansen takes 15 different medications and the side effects from those medicines include possible skin cancers, temporary diabetes and gradual loss of his eyesight and hearing. He sees about a half dozen doctors.

"I think it's a small price to pay to stay alive," he said. "You just have to roll with the punches and make the most out of the opportunities that you have."

Hansen's sister, Angela, is a likely match and they are hoping she can be his kidney donor. More tests have to be taken, but the surgery could happen as early as next February.

But that's just before the high school tournament and there's the bucket list to think about and Hansen might just have to wait until Newport's race to the Tacoma Dome has been run.

This is a love story after all, and coach Hansen doesn't want to abandon his game.

Steve Kelley: 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.com

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