Chuck Pagano, now the Bears’ defensive coordinator, missed 12 games in his first season as the Colts’ head coach to receive treatment for leukemia.
On Christmas Eve 2012, Chuck Pagano was nervous before addressing his team. He was excited to hit the practice field. He was grateful for the many people who had stepped in while he was away. He was looking forward to returning to the meetings and the minutiae of being a football coach, things he’d never looked forward to before.
But the best moment of that Christmas Eve for the then-Colts coach didn’t come until the very end of that day, his first game back after being diagnosed with leukemia three months earlier.