Foothill softball coach doesn’t know how to lose — even in battle with cancer

The Foothill High School softball coach has had plenty of practice winning and occasionally losing games, but his attitude doesn’t change when he steps off the diamond.

Also an avid rugby player at age 59, Mayes is fighting the biggest and most important battle of his life … and winning.

Mayes was diagnosed in July with acute promyelocytic leukemia. He’s undergoing treatments and still coaching the Falcons this season, and has been in complete remission since the end of October.

“I’m pretty lucky. That’s for sure,” Mayes said. “I just don’t know how to lose. That’s what has helped me with this. If I have anything to do with it, any control over it, I’m going to do what I have to do to win.”

Mayes has done a lot of winning at Foothill, taking the Falcons to the state tournament four times in the past eight years.

A geoscience and chemistry teacher at Foothill, Mayes is constantly on the go, and when his body started showing signs of slowing down last summer, he tried to dismiss it.

But on the morning of July 22 while in St. George, Utah, a side of his face sagged. Mayes’ wife convinced him to go to quick care, which then sent Mayes to the emergency room.

He was hospitalized for 37 days while doctors began a relatively new type of treatment, one that doesn’t involve chemotherapy or radiation. Mayes has been receiving treatments that are a combination of tretinoin and aresenic trioxide.

“My doctor in St. George gave me this option, and I jumped at this one because I don’t think the body would have been able to handle the other because it destroys cells,” Mayes said. “Everything was so low that I don’t know that I could have handled it.”

European doctors had used the treatment with great success, Mayes said, but it’s still new here.

“My oncologist in St. George brought this study to my attention,” Mayes said. “It came out in the New England Journal of Medicine on July 11. That combination of stuff is pretty new here, but they’ve done it quite a bit in Europe.”

Even while hospitalized, Mayes couldn’t just sit still. Within a week, he was walking the floors of the hospital, then the grounds of the hospital campus, much to the surprise of emergency room nurses, who couldn’t figure out why Mayes was walking outside.

“The first time I went outside, I went around the hospital complex. I’ve got my mask on and I’m in my little sock booties and my gown, and I’m going by the emergency room entrance. A nurse comes out and says, ‘Sir, sir, what are you doing?’ ‘I’m going for a walk.’” Mayes said.

“I couldn’t just lay there. I had to get up. I had to go. I had to fight this thing.”

While the news of Mayes’ condition surprised his colleagues, his fighting spirit didn’t.

“Of all the coaching staff out here, he’s the one guy who is still super active,” said Andrew Risheg, Mayes’ assistant coach and Foothill’s boys soccer coach. “It’s encouraging for me that people can go through something like that and still want to reach out and grab the ring and keep going. It’s great to see that.”

Mayes returned to Foothill in October, and while he says he’s not yet back to 100 percent, he’s working his way there.

Unlike some coaches, Mayes does the bulk of the maintenance on his softball field, mowing the grass and making any necessary repairs.

“He’s one of the hardest working guys I’ve ever been around,” said Coronado softball coach Melissa Krueger, who was Mayes’ assistant for five years. “He’s a fighter, and he does so much. I don’t think people have any idea how much work he puts in on that field and preparing his teams. They are always so well-prepared.”

He’s also back to hitting ground balls and giving signals from the coach’s box.

“He’s sick and he comes out here to be with us and still work as hard as he can,” Foothill senior RaeAnn Brems said. “He has a big excuse. He’s out here, and he’s going through treatment. He puts the best foot forward for us, always.

“He doesn’t act like he’s sick at all, so sometimes you just forget that he is sick. The only difference now is that he misses the first 30 minutes of practice.”

The treatment Mayes is undergoing is scheduled to last until April 18, just in time for Mayes to play rugby again.

Yes, really.

Mayes also coaches the Las Vegas Irish Rugby Football Club. While he doesn’t play against the younger guys any more, Mayes is planning to play in the Old Boys Rugby Tournament on May 3 at Catalina Island.

And he’s still focused on trying to bring Foothill its first state championship.

“I’ve got that ultimate goal that we want to get to,” Mayes said. “We haven’t done it here yet. No team at Foothill has won a state championship yet, so that’s obviously still a goal.

“I always tell these guys, always at the end of talks, you guys are the lucky ones to be out here. A lot of kids all over the country, all over the world, want to be doing this. I said this before I got sick, and I still say it. Give it your all. Don’t hold back.”

Contact reporter Bartt Davis at bdavis@reviewjournal.com or (702) 387-5230.