MUKILTEO — In writing that “baseball is fathers and sons,” poet Donald Hall illustrated the cyclical nature and timelessness of our national pastime, and also showed the way that love of the sport is often passed from one generation to the next.
At Kamiak High School, first-year varsity baseball coach Frank Nickerson, 54, and his son, Dominic, a junior outfielder and pitcher for the Knights, are showing how the love of the game can be used as a shield to ward off any foe — even cancer — if only for a few hours at a time.
In August of 2013, Frank Nickerson was in his second decade of service to Kamiak baseball and head coach Steve Merkley, who led the program from the school’s inception in 1993 until his retirement following the 2014 season. After eight years in remission, Frank’s colorectal cancer returned and metastasized in his lungs, sending the lives of his wife, Tess, and their two sons, Dominic and Michael, into upheaval.
“It was tough,” Frank said of telling his sons that the illness he thought he had “licked” to use his term, wasn’t.
“When I told Dominic, the one thing he said was ‘Please fight, Dad,’ so that’s what I’ve been doing.”
This spring Frank and Dominic have shared the sport they love as father and son, coach and player, and are thankful for every moment.
The list of student-athletes who have played under their parents or other family members is long, even at the high school level, and it is a unique and valuable arrangement for both parties.
“It’s very special. I couldn’t say anything to diminish that,” Frank said of coaching Dominic on the field that his son toddled around as a youngster. “He’s had to grow up quite a bit the last couple years because of my illness. It’s pretty surreal to see him out there on the field when I’m coaching.”
Dominic, who is also a student in his father’s English class at Kamiak, has successfully navigated the often blurry border between his duties as a son and those of a player. Those lines have been muddled even further because of Frank’s illness.
“I think it’s definitely a good bonding experience for both of us,” Dominic said. “I’ve grown up all my life having him as a coach, even if he’s not the (official) coach. It does take a little bit of getting used to not to call him ‘Dad.’ It’s Coach Nickerson.”
Frank, who has worked as either the junior-varsity head coach or varsity assistant since 1994, continued to teach freshman and junior English at Kamiak throughout his illness, though he had to miss more class time than he would have liked during the first semester of this year.
In early 2014, with Dominic ready to make his varsity debut as a sophomore, Merkley put off his planned retirement for a year so Frank could ease back into his role as an assistant and still be around to watch Dominic play.
“Frank wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to coach that year because he didn’t know how his health was going to be,” Merkley said.
When Merkley finally retired, Frank entered his name into the pool of candidates to succeed him at a time when his health trajectory was at its lowest point.
The initial course of chemotherapy wasn’t working as well as his doctors at the Providence Regional Cancer Partnership in Everett would have liked, and he had to go down to teaching half-time, a move that was particularly painful for an educator whose wife says is the truest version of himself in the classroom.
“He likes to joke around with the kids a lot,” Tess Nickerson, Frank’s wife of 17 years, said. “How he is — a jovial jokester — is the way he is with his students in class.”
Kamiak athletic director Sean Monica zeroed in on Frank as Merkley’s successor, and he set aside Frank’s illness in that decision.
“My goal as the athletic director is to first and foremost hire the best candidate that I could to lead our baseball program,” Monica said. “That turned out to be Frank, and once we knew that, we thought about what we could put in place to help support Frank and to help him be successful. He’s very motivated to be there every day and to give a great effort to spend as much time with the guys and Dominic as possible.”
After a tough fall and winter, and a second opinion at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, Frank and his doctors arrived at a course of treatment that has his condition trending upward. He receives chemotherapy once a week, usually on Thursdays.
On Thursday, March 26, the 0-4 Kamiak Knights hosted Stanwood in a makeup game. Frank went right from chemotherapy to the ballpark.
“He’s in his chair getting his treatment, and he has a yellow pad to write out his lineup,” Tess said. “He’s telling the nurses, ‘I gotta go, my game’s starting.’ They’re telling him, ‘We’re trying Frank, we’ll get you out of here as soon as we can.’ That’s just how he is, the kids he teaches and coaches are always his endgame. I think the kids are more therapeutic for him than his actual treatment.”
After the Knights collected their first win that Thursday, Frank came dangerously close to suggesting that if a round of treatment helps the team win, it should be a regular occurrence.
“I’m not going to do that every time we win,” he said with a chuckle. “But you get the juices going as soon as the game starts, and it’s not really until after the game that I’m kind of out of it.”
Frank says that the combination of chemotherapy and magnesium supplements he receives can make him weak and tired, but it’s nothing that prevents him being at practice every day and leading the instruction.
Shane Neighbors, Kamiak’s varsity assistant who has been both Frank’s boss and his subordinate over the years, as well as being Merkley’s son-in-law, said other coaches might ask more of their assistants while dealing with such an illness. Not Frank.
“He’s such a tough and courageous guy that it hasn’t been any different than normal,” Neighbors said. “It hasn’t been like I’m in charge of practice this week. It just seems normal. He’s kind of set the tone with the way he’s dealt with everything.”
Frank’s approach to his illness, at least in terms of how he appears in front of his team, has been to operate as if there is no illness.
“I don’t come out to a practice without it being well-planned and without being in charge of what goes on, at least the instruction and teaching aspect of it,” he said. “I’ve tried to make sure that I’m doing my job, that I’m not putting extra responsibility on anyone else. Still, my staff has been great. I won’t lessen anything they’ve done because they’ve just been awesome. I’m sure administration feels probably a little bit better having Shane and the other guys out here. They don’t want me dying out on the field on my kids.”
Neighbors is joined on the staff by local businessman Mike McCalmon, a former Kamiak shortstop who played collegiately at South Alabama, and Ryan Loesell, a teacher at Voyager Middle School who pitched at Portland State.
Loesell is also a pitching instructor at Rijo Athletics and helps the pitching staff at Kamiak three days a week. Ryan Clay, Clarence Trinidad and Roman Santiago are also on the Kamiak baseball staff.
It’s no coincidence that four of Frank’s assistant coaches played for him.
“I like to think that some of them came back because we’ve had good relationshps,” he said.
Kamiak sits at 4-11 overall and 3-6 in Wesco 4A, and the Knights would miss the playoffs if the season ended today. The top six teams in the conference advance to districts at Everett Memorial Stadium.
Kamiak has dealt with youth and inexperience all season, with just one pitcher on the staff who threw varsity innings last year and just two returning letter-winners. The Knights’ infield is entirely comprised of first-year varsity players.
“Inconsistency has been a big thing, particularly with the pitchers,” Frank said. “The pitchers have worked hard in the offseason, in the bullpens and in the drills, but on the mound they just need that experience.”
Dominic said he appreciates that his teammates have followed Frank’s lead in not making a fuss over his illness.
“I think the players have responded really well to him,” he said. “They don’t come up and approach me like, ‘I’m sorry about your dad.’ That’s what I really respect about them and what I think he respects about them is that they don’t pity us. They try and help and to do the best they can, but they don’t focus on that he’s sick. They focus on trying to win. That’s important to know that he’s not out here to get people to feel bad or for people to have pity. He’s out here to help us win.”
Even so, the rest of the Kamiak roster rallies around Frank. That’s apparent to anyone who spends even a short amount of time watching the Knights practice.
“I think we all as people want to feel a sense of victory after trying and fighting. I do believe this is his safe haven,” Dominic said. “With all of the stuff he’s going through, the best thing we can do is kind of give him a victory once in a while. I believe that we rally for him. We try to win for ourselves as a team, but we do try to win for him as well.”
Dominic Nickerson has lived exactly half of his 16 years with his dad battling cancer, and in watching Frank fight the disease — just as he asked him to — he has come to know his father in a different way.
“I think personally it gives me a reality check,” he said. “I don’t feel bad about myself because I know he’s got a hell of a lot harder of a life than I do. I can’t cure him; I can’t really help him in any way except try and do the best I can on the field.”
But given all Frank has battled since his initial diagnosis, just being out there coaching is a victory in itself.
“The word that comes to mind is thankful,” Tess Nickerson said of what she feels when she watches her husband and son on the field together. “I’m thankful that Frank is actually able to be out there with the kids and with Dominic and that he’s still able to coach them. It’s always about the kids. That’s what really gets him going. Our kids, his students, his players. I think they are really his life force.”
Frank is approaching the two-year mark, which he was told is the average life expectancy for patients with Stage IV colorectal cancer. He expects to continue his chemotherapy treatments for the rest of his life. With Tess, Dominic and Michael by his side, he will continue to live his life, refusing to be defined by his illness.
“When you’re living, there’s no end date,” Tess said. “If you use the word survival, or surviving, it’s like there’s an end date to that. Nothing in life is guaranteed, so we just have to keep living every day. We make plans for the future. We know the numbers, but they’re never really definite.”
Taking advantage of every moment he has, Frank will continue to teach and coach, and root for the New England teams he loved as a kid growing up in Massachusetts.
“I have this quote that I put on my board, ‘Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain,’” he said. “That’s what I’ve kind of been doing, just dancing in the rain, because I’m not sure the storm’s going to pass, and that’s OK. Just make the most of it while you can.”
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