Hours after he’d been diagnosed with brain cancer in December 2004, Doug Hembrough was resting on a heavy dose of pain relief at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago when he was suddenly awakened by a cell phone.
He shot straight up in bed, brother-in-law Kyle Myers recalled, and immediately said, “You need to call Coach Reid.”
Meaning Andy Reid, the Chiefs coach who had worked with Hembrough during Reid’s relatively brief stint as an assistant coach at the University of Missouri from 1989-91. Considering it was around 10 p.m. in a time zone an hour behind where Reid then was coaching the Philadelphia Eagles, Myers resisted before Hembrough’s insistence finally persuaded him to proceed.