Dick Harmon: BYU's Dave Rose and the story of Don McCandless

I bring up Don because of the words Dave Rose’s wife Cheryl told our newspaper two Januarys ago with tears in her eyes: "You never want to say you're grateful for cancer. We were fortunate; there are so many others who have had nothing good come out of it. But we're so grateful we have that perspective, and I don't know if we would have gotten it any other way."

I bring this up because when the time comes to second-guess Rose over a game plan or execution of a set of plays at crunch time or his team’s failure to win a game or advance in a tournament, it will always be with the knowledge that that stuff really doesn’t matter.

The fact that Dave Rose is alive, that he can kiss his wife and hug his children and grandchildren, that he can go to work and drive home at night and have dinner with his family … well, it is simply the greatest blessing of all.

On this day, I mourn Don McCandless; I salute Dave Rose. And I say to you, take nothing for granted in this life.

Dick Harmon, Deseret News sports columnist, can be found on Twitter as Harmonwrites and can be contacted at dharmon@desnews.com.