THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: 'If anybody can do it, it's Bry'—St. Maries boys basketball coach Bryan Chase, diagnosed with pancreatic liver cancer but surrounded by love, has a game plan, naturall

June is usually a pretty busy month for longtime St. Maries High coach Bryan Chase. 

He just got done putting on a basketball camp (he’s the Lumberjacks boys basketball coach). 

He just got done putting on a golf camp, and a golf tournament (he’s the Lumberjacks golf coach). 

And he had just taken the head volleyball coaching job at St. Maries. 

SO, AS he does every couple months or so, the 53-year-old Chase went in for a massage on his back, to relieve the wear and tear of playing golf, or playing basketball, or ... well, just being 53. 

His massages, this one with one of the women in St. Maries who is also a first responder, usually last an hour. 

This massage, on June 24, got cut short. 

“She started rubbing on my lower back, and I just started turning white as a ghost. And about passed out. She thought I was having a heart attack,” Bryan recalled. “She said, 'You need to go to the ER,’ and I did, and they did some X-rays, and the doctor came back and said, 'This isn’t good.’ 

“At that point I didn’t know it, but I had a bunch of tumors inside my stomach, and my liver was full of tumors, and that rubbing triggered it, set it off.” 

Bryan’s wife, the former Kristi Masterson, works upstairs at Benewah Community Hospital, some two blocks away from where her husband received the massage. 

When he called her on the way to the ER, she thought nothing of it, and went down a couple floors to meet him, not bothering to clock out because she figured she’d only be away a few minutes. 

However ... 

“I could tell by the doctor’s face, just because I work with the guy, it wasn’t good,” Kristi recalled. 

BRYAN SAID he has what’s called neuroendocrine pancreatic liver cancer, a rare, slower-growing cancer. 

It has metastasized from his pancreas to his liver, and they’re not sure where else. 

“When you hear pancreatic liver cancer, when you read about it on the internet, it’s basically a six-month death sentence,” Bryan said. “But with it being neuroendocrine cancer, it’s slower growing, it gives you some hope to keep the cancer at bay, get in and get a surgery. A lot of people get a shot once a month to keep the cancer at bay. And keeps it slow to where you have a shot at life.” 

Bryan and Kristi have decided to attack the diagnosis like a coach would. 

“You scout your opponent, see what you’re up against, and come up with a game plan so you can beat it,” Kristi said. “That’s the mentality that we have.” 

Bryan has been on chemotherapy for the past five months. Originally, doctors wanted to keep him on it for six months, but said he’s had such a good reaction to the chemo, “they said let’s keep it going for a few more months and keep your tumors shrinking and that will give you the best opportunity for your operation, and some longevity.” 

He hopes to have an operation to remove the tumors in the spring, likely at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. 

Since the diagnosis, Bryan lost about 50 pounds, and has put 15 of that back on. 

“At the time I was really trying to get into shape, and I thought I was,” Bryan said. “I was walking every day with my health class, and I was feeling a lot better about things until that hit me.” 

Right now, the chemo treatments are two weeks on, two weeks off, every day for two weeks. Six chemo pills on days 1-10, and 10 pills a day for the next five. 

“The only time I’ve felt sick has been when I’ve been on those 10 chemo pills,” Bryan said. “A double dose, two different chemo pills, it causes nausea and fatigue for sure.” 

As if he didn’t have enough going on, Bryan was on the double dose of chemo a couple of weekends ago — just in time for boys basketball tryouts. 

Bryan preaches positive mental attitude to his players. He’s heeding his own words. 

“Not only is he positive, but he’s the most competitive person I know,” Kristi said. “So he is going to fight like heck, and I have no doubt that, Stage 4 (cancer) is a pretty big beast to be up against, but if anybody can do it, it’s Bry.”

YES, BRYAN is still coaching basketball. Fortunately, he has some terrific, veteran assistants to help out. 

Besides, it’s therapeutic. 

“This group of kids that he has, he wanted to see them through,” Kristi said. “It would have taken a lot for him not to coach. He needs to. It’s something that he looks forward to, and it’s his passion. He coaches hard, but he loves harder. He loves those kids. I don’t think he would be doing as well as he is now if he wasn’t a part of that. 

“We kinda went with the mentality that not coaching those boys was not an option — unless something happened where he could have surgery (during the season),” Kristi added. “It would have taken a lot for him to not be there. It gives him a focus, and something to look forward to.” 

Coaches coach. 

This past summer, Bryan and Kristi were at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle for a second opinion, waiting to talk to the doctor. 

Kristi noticed she had a Facebook message. 

It was from Bryan. 

It was a basketball play he had just drawn up. 

They were sitting next to each other. 

“Not knowing what he’s up against, he still has basketball on his mind, making his plays, and coaching,” Kristi said. “That never stopped. That never wavered from his mind.” 

Bryan decided not to coach volleyball this fall, and whether he coaches golf in the spring depends on when he can get in for surgery. 

We mentioned busy. 

Bryan and Kristi, together some 15 years, got married in July. 

They went to England for a week, to visit his stepdaughter, Sami Sindt, who is studying abroad. Sami got into a lottery and it hit, so Bryan and Sami got to play golf at St. Andrews. 

Bryan recorded his fifth — yes, fifth — career hole-in-one, playing at the St. Maries Golf Course. 

He played in the club championship at St. Maries Golf Course, once again facing former Lumberjack standout Seth Swallows in the championship match. This time, Seth won. 

No cancer is “good,” but this one is more on the positive side than regular pancreatic liver cancer, Bryan said. 

“Life expectancy is 5-10 years with this,” he said, “but there’s lots of people out there living 15 to 20 years with it. So, who knows. 

I’m living the best I can, enjoying life and slowing things down.” 

Bryan had been on medical leave from teaching since the start of the school year, and he recently resigned as a teacher. 

So he spends his days at home, making juice, eating healthy, walking, playing golf. 

He recently went fishing with Mitch Santos, the former St. Maries volleyball coach who seems to spend most of his life on a fishing boat, and caught a steelhead weighing roughly 20 pounds. 

That was dinner one night. 

THE SURGERY, he hopes, will be in March or April or May, whenever it can be scheduled, and when he’s ready for it. 

Surgery would involve taking out his gall bladder, part of his pancreas and part of his liver. 

“It's pretty random, how you get it,” Bryan said of the cancer. “I probably had it in my stomach 5-10 years before it even got diagnosed. 

"Part of that cancer is, you start having pain in your upper back, and I was definitely having that at the time,” he said. “Before, my lower back might go out from playing golf, or playing basketball with the kids. I really had no idea that there was anything wrong with me until I got in there (for the massage) and just couldn’t even move.” 

Did we mention that he’s also owned the Country Fair department store in St. Maries for the past 12 years. His mom had it for 30 years before that. Sometimes that means juggling attending buying shows for the store with coaching boys basketball, where he’s beginning his 12th season as head boys coach. He previously coached the St. Maries girls for eight seasons.  

Bryan had coached junior high volleyball for nearly 30 years, starting when he was at Lakeside High in Plummer-Worley, where he coached the Knights to a state A-4 slowpitch softball championship in 1997. 

He was named head volleyball coach at St. Maries in early June. 

“I just thought our program had been downhill for the last several years, and I just thought I could make a difference,” Bryan said. “There was a good group of kids coming back, and I really wanted to help them get back on track.” 

But after putting the team through some summer workouts, once he started on the chemo he started feeling fatigued and sick. He thought he couldn’t do the job justice, and stepped away in late summer. Tammie Woster, who was planning to join the staff as an assistant coach, became the head coach. 

Bryan’s store manager and Kristi put on a benefit recently, raising some $90,000 to help cover expenses for his operation. 

After winning the aforementioned club championship, Seth Swallows, currently playing golf for Spokane Colleges, donated his winnings to his former coach, which was “definitely a tear-jerking moment,” Bryan said. 

Bryan was planning to teach four more years, when he would reach the Rule of 90 for full retirement. He said the folks at school have been more than helpful through all this. 

These days, he’s focusing on eating healthy, having his operation ... and, of course, getting his Lumberjack boys back to state. After going to state in each of his first 10 seasons, St. Maries lost in the state play-in game last year. 

Time to start a new streak. 

MEANWHILE, BRYAN says he’s thankful. 

“That’s what’s so cool about being in a small community,” he said. “I’m just overwhelmed by all the love and support, the messages, the benefit, the golf course put on a little benefit as well. Dakota (Wickard, the athletic director) has been great at the school; they want to do some special things. Definitely a tear-jerker when you think about it.” 

At a recent boys basketball jamboree at St. Maries High, the referees wore purple ribbons, and the other coaches and players wore them as well, in support of Chase. 

“I’m not a cryer, but when they announced him, the starting lineup and coach Bryan Chase, I cried,” Kristi said. “And the national anthem played, I teared up. It was pretty emotional, and I’m not a cryer. I don’t get real worked up, and that choked me up pretty good. So I’m pretty sure this whole season is going to be a flood of emotions, but in a good way. 

“We’re very grateful we’re here.” 

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 208-664-8176, Ext. 1205, or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @CdAPressSports. 

    JASON DUCHOW PHOTOGRAPHY St. Maries High boys basketball coach Bryan Chase gives instruction to his team during a state tournament game at Capital High in Boise.