By Eric Knopsnyder
sports@tribdem.com
August 17, 2024

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. – Facing the toughest battle of his life, Pat Pecora is relying on the lessons that he has preached to his Pitt-Johnstown wrestlers over the past 48 years.

“No matter what situation you’re in in life, you’ve got to make the best of it,” the 70-year-old Pecora said from his hospital bed Friday, a day before he was scheduled to be released from the Crichton Rehabilitation Center in downtown Johnstown.

“That’s your job. I don’t want to hear anything else. Not ‘Why me? Why this? Why that?’ Tough. That’s the way it is. Suck it up and be the best that you can be with whatever is thrown at you.”

Pecora has had plenty thrown at him over the past two months. He said he has had to be resuscitated multiple times during his battle with lung cancer, but he has made remarkable progress recently.

Dressed in a Pitt-Johnstown wrestling quarter-zip and looking much thinner, the winningest coach in college wrestling history recounted in a whispery voice his journey since he was admitted to UPMC Presbyterian in Pittsburgh June 26.

Fight of his life

After Pecora was diagnosed with lung cancer a dozen years ago, doctors surgically removed the upper lobe of his left lung.

In 2023, he was diagnosed with a more aggressive form of cancer, synovial sarcoma, and he underwent regular chemotherapy treatments last season while leading the Mountain Cats to a 15-2 record and an eighth consecutive Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference team title.

A large tumor pressing on his heart made surgery a necessity this spring, but complications delayed the surgery. Eventually, two tumors that Pecora said weighed “four or five pounds,” the one affecting his heart and the other near his diaphragm, were removed along with the cancerous lung. The recovery has been very difficult.

“I had some real close calls,” he said. “I think I died three times.”

During one of those long nights, as those close to him were preparing to say their goodbyes, Pecora contemplated giving up.

“You felt like, ‘Take it easy. Don’t worry about it. Quit. No big deal,’ ” he recalled. “Then, on the other end, I was like, ‘I’ll feel bad, because (my loved ones will) feel bad if I die.’ You fight for them. It’s your wife, your kids, your grandkids, your brothers, your sisters, your wrestlers. There are so many people to live for.”

In addition to the people who visited him in the hospital, many others have shown their support for Pecora through a GoFundMe page that has raised more than $50,000 to help his family with expenses related to his extended hospital stay.

Pecora’s physical and mental conditioning have served him well during his fight.

“It’s very easy to say, ‘Why me? I worked out every day. I never smoked a cigarette. Look at everybody else. They don’t do that, and look at them.’ But when you do that, you turn yourself into the victim. And I refuse to do that.

“I went the other way,” he recalled. “I said, ‘I’m going to embrace it. I’m going to embrace this experience. No matter how unjust or unbearable it might feel, I’m going to embrace it, as God chose me to go through this with some type of purpose. I’m honored that He chose me because He must feel that I can do it.’ ”

After preaching to generations of wrestlers that they should never give up – or, in Pecora’s terms, never “let go of the rope” that connects them to their Pitt-Johnstown teammates – he followed his own advice.

“Never let go of the rope,” he recalled. “My guys were saying that the whole time. That’s what it was all about. Never give up. Once I get the rope, once I got the other end, I’m never letting go. I never let go, and everybody pulled me back.”

Strength in family

No one pulled harder than Pecora’s wife, Tracy.

“I’d be dead if it wasn’t for my wife,” he said. “Life is all about relationships. It’s not about things; it’s about relationships. In good times, bad times, that’s what pulls you through.”

The Pecoras have four children – Christina, Marina, Marco and Nico – and eight grandchildren. Pecora made it his goal to be out of the hospital in time to see his granddaughter Cecilia be baptized this weekend, and he will.

He has several other goals – and a timeline that includes the fall wrestling season.

“Right now, I have three things on my mind,” he said. “Now that I’m down to one lung, I’ve got to make it as strong as I can. I’ve got to learn how to walk again. Right now, with the (tracheostomy tube), I’ve got to learn how to talk. Being able to breathe, walk and talk – pretty essential. That’s my goal the rest of the summer.

“Hopefully, by the time the regular season starts – I probably won’t be back much for preseason – but by the regular season, I could be back.”

His distinctive voice – the one that called out to so many wrestlers and wrestling officials over the years – will never be the same.

“They said I might have to get a microphone or something. No more yelling,” he said.

Still teaching lessons

Cooper Warshel, a Richland High School graduate who was a national qualifier last year for the Mountain Cats, visited his coach recently at the Crichton Center and was amazed by the experience.

“He’s sitting in a hospital bed with machines all around him and he still finds a way to make you feel like you want to run through a wall for him,” Warshel said. “You want people to understand that he’s one of those rare people who knows how to get the best out of somebody. He doesn’t need to show you the most perfect wrestling technique. He knows how to get you out of your own way and get the most potential out of you.”

While he’s already thinking about the coming wrestling season, Pecora is also trying to take life one day at a time.

“I’ve got a long way to go, but it’s feasible,” he said. “It’s there. It’s just going to take some time. My biggest thing now is patience.”

Doctors removed the largest tumors, but he’s still dealing with others.

“They said, ‘You’ll never get rid of the cancer,’ ” said Pecora, who will turn 71 next month. “They feel it’s all controllable because it’s all small. Now, you count your blessings. I keep thinking, ‘I can make it to 80.’ ”