The Daily Observer London Desk: Reporter- Judith Benjamin
BUFFALO, N.Y. — Jim Kelly, loser of four Super Bowls, one son and an upper jaw, stands in the pool in his backyard, water up to his midsection.
About 25 family members and friends from his fellowship group circle the pool. Next to him is Matt Gold, the pastor of Alden Community Church.
“To see today happen is such a sweet, sweet day, brother,” Gold tells him. “I love you and I think we can all say we’re proud of you and how far you’ve come. And where you’re going is even better.”
As Gold alludes, Kelly is not who he was.
The charisma and presence that once made him a leader of leaders is still there. His left fibula is not.
It was removed in 2018, broken into four pieces, and used to reconstruct his upper jaw which had been infested by squamous cell carcinoma. In a 12-hour surgery, arteries and blood vessels also were taken from his arm and moved to his jaw. A prosthesis with false teeth was implanted.
When the cancer was diagnosed, it was Stage 4. A doctor gave Kelly less than a 10 percent chance to beat it because it was so close to his brain.
“I know you’re a Christian and you believe in miracles,” the doctor told him. “That’s a good thing because you’re going to need one.”
Kelly has heard about miracles since he crashed through a glass door when he was 6 years old. A shard slashed his neck, requiring 40 stitches.
On the last play of his college career, his throwing shoulder was torn apart on a violent hit, jeopardizing his ability to ever complete another pass. Nearly 4,000 completions and four decades later, the shoulder remains held together with three metal rods.
The jaw surgery was one of four cancer surgeries and 20 surgeries overall, give or take. Kelly has two plates and 10 screws in his back as well as one plate and six screws in his neck. There’s a screw in his left knee and mesh in his abdomen where he had double hernia surgery twice.
Two years ago, Kelly had ankle replacement surgery, but the joint became badly infected. Last year doctors opened him again. He says it looked like lasagna and can provide graphic photographic proof. A second ankle replacement was necessary.
Between the first and second ankle replacements, there were pimples on his nose and chin that wouldn’t go away. Basal cell carcinoma. One surgery removed half his left nostril, and the other took a significant chunk of his chin.
In May, he had a stroke in his left retina. Then his blood pressure was taken — 210 over 120. He had to return from a trip to Ireland eight days early. Then came a hospitalization, a heart monitor, a sleep study, meds — doctors are still trying to figure it out.
In the meantime, he needed an esophageal dilation to expand his esophagus because food often got stuck in his throat.
He enjoys conversation, but it isn’t always easy. Kelly adjusts his hearing aids frequently. His jaw and mouth hurt if he talks too much.
Almost everything hurts. At one point doctors had him taking 16 Advil a day. “Drink lots of water,” they told him.
Now he’s on more potent pain pills and they take the edge off.
Somehow, with or without his meds, Kelly smiles easily and broadly. The smile looks a little different than it used to, but it’s never conveyed more joy.
He has a zeal for every opportunity, probably every breath.
Gold puts one hand on Kelly’s chest and the other on his back.
“It’s a privilege to baptize you, my brother, in Jesus,” Gold says. “In the name of the Father, and the Son and Holy Spirit.”
Kelly holds his breath. Gold guides him backward and under.
Jim Kelly celebrates his baptism in front of pastor Matt Gold. (Courtesy of Jill Kelly)
This wasn’t the first time Kelly was baptized, but it was the first time he had a say in it. He was initially christened 63 years ago at St. Eusebius Catholic Church in East Brady, Pa., a no-stoplight town on the Allegheny River that’s 57 miles from Pittsburgh and 30 miles from the closest McDonald’s.
When he was about 4, Kelly, the fourth in a line of six brothers, picked up a football and threw it to his father with so much force, his father said, that it stung his hands.
There was an audacity about him, even as a kid. Kelly and his thrill-seeking brothers would jump off a 75-foot-high steel bridge into the Allegheny, which was 20 feet deep. When he was 11, he met his hero Terry Bradshaw and told the Steelers quarterback he would take his job one day.
For most of his childhood, Kelly was an altar server at St. Eusebius. When he grew to 6-foot-3 — seven inches taller than the parish priest — he was allowed to become a lector instead.
By then, Kelly was an athlete of renown at East Brady High. He scored more than 1,000 points in basketball — making the sign of the cross before every free throw — and earned all-conference honors in football as a quarterback, safety, punter and kicker.
Athletically, he believed he could do anything, and he rarely was proved wrong.
Penn State, Linebacker U, wanted him as a linebacker, and it was easy to see why, given his grit. But Kelly wanted to be a quarterback — he wanted to be a star — so he went to Miami. With Kelly breaking school passing records, the Hurricanes began a new tradition. Miami became known as Quarterback U.
When the Bills drafted him in 1983, he was despondent at the thought of moving to Buffalo. He didn’t try to hide it, which offended their loyal, downtrodden fans. Palm trees seemed to have a better chance of taking root and thriving in Buffalo than Kelly.
