BYU basketball: Dave Rose has new view on life after illness

PROVO — In past years when Dave Rose returned home after a BYU basketball loss, his family knew to give him his space.

With Rose's competitive and self-blaming nature, they understood that when he was ready to talk, he'd talk, and no sooner.

But when the Cougars lost to Utah State earlier this month, BYU's only loss so far this season, it was a different post-loss atmosphere in the Rose home. There was no longer the need for a cooling down period. Moving on occurred much faster than ever before.

"He let me know that it was a game, and that the guys didn't play very well, but that they'd play better the next time," Cheryl Rose said.

That change, Cheryl Rose said, came about because of her husband's new perspective on life and new appreciation for things, good and bad, after his battle last summer with pancreatic cancer. In Dave Rose's first press conference a few weeks following his emergency surgery to remove his cancerous spleen and part of his pancreas, Cheryl Rose said then that her husband was much "kindler and gentler." She says that's still the case more than four months later.

"He's a different guy. I think he sees life differently," Cheryl said.

Besides a new appreciation for how fragile life is, and for the importance of relationships, Cheryl says her husband also has a new sense of direction.

"He's just excited for the second chance he has at life, and I think he wants to make the most of it. He wants to make a difference in people's lives, and he's in a position where he can do that," she said.

The Roses have been chairs of the Children With Cancer Christmas Foundation for the past five years. But their involvement with the foundation, and the annual Christmas party it holds every year for families of those with children suffering from cancer, is on a little more personal level now because of their own experience with the disease.

"What I think we finally realize is that these families understand just how precious every minute is with their children and their loved ones. We had a little taste of that. I know for us it put priorities in place very quickly," Cheryl Rose said. "We've always told people that we get a lot more out of this than we put into it."

On Monday, BYU's coaches and wives went shopping, with funds donated by the community, and filled more than 50 carts full of toys. On Wednesday night, the coaches, wives and players presented those gifts to nearly 100 families who have children battling cancer.