GREENFIELD -- There were 30 minutes of Andy Gililland's life where death loomed over his hospital bed. He was shrouded by a plastic bubble as his sister held his hand through a hole, as his friends were inconsolable, as his mother prayed with rosary beads that her only son would somehow survive to watch another Notre Dame football game, to play pickup basketball with his friends, to serve hamburgers at the McDonald's where he was climbing the fast food ranks as a young manager.
The doctors never tried to sweeten the sour prognosis Gilliland faced the day after Christmas in 1989 when he was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, an aggressive form of cancer that attacks the white blood cells. While the disease was mostly found in children and could be treated with success, in adults the rate of survival was much lower.
Gilliland was 23 and remembers the odds doctors at IU Health University Hospital gave him, ones he couldn't look up on Google, that said if all went exactly as planned, he had a 30% chance of beating this brutal disease.
He spent one day thinking he would probably die and become a disappearing stat in that 70%. The next day, he turned to his beloved sports and decided to live.
Gilliland had been an athlete from the time he was old enough to walk. Baseball, football, basketball, any sport he could be a part of. He grew to become a super sports fan, rooting for the Colts, Pacers, Notre Dame and the Reds. He especially loved the crack of a Major League bat.
"At the time, the rate of getting into remission and surviving was about .300," Gilliland said. "And I remember I'm thinking, 'Well, a baseball player, if they hit .300, they're doing pretty good.'"
And so, with that, he didn't look backward, he didn't look forward, and instead he fought day by day by day. "I decided I was going to have a positive outlook." But cancer doesn't always care about positive attitudes.
I'm sorry. It's now or never.
That's what doctors told Gilliland's parents, Jack and Carole, as death lingered those crucial 30 minutes inside a dark hospital room. Either Gilliland would push through and overcome this, or he would die at the age of 23.
As Gilliland sat in a cart at Arrowhead Golf Course in Greenfield on Monday, he said he still sometimes can't believe he was that close to death. Not now, at 57 years old, and embarking on his annual golf benefit that every September helps someone in Hancock County battling cancer.
The benefit was started 30 years ago as Gilliland faced mounting medical bills. It was started by his friends who wanted to do something for their 6-foot-5, bighearted friend who, of all the people on this earth, was the last to deserve cancer.
"It's trite to say somebody will give you the shirt off their back but Andy would do that for anyone," said Gilliland's lifelong friend Rob Richardson and one of the original founders of the benefit. "And he never has an unkind word to say about anybody."
In true Gilliland fashion all those years ago, he balked at the idea of a benefit for him. He doesn't like to be in the spotlight, and he didn't feel right having all these people coming together, giving money and their entire day just for him. Surely there was someone else more deserving.
"Andy was very uncomfortable," said Jerry Rogers, an agent with Indiana Farm Bureau Insurance in Greenfield, who founded the event. "I suggested, 'Well then, how about you let us do this benefit for you and then you could pay it forward?'"
Yes, Gilliland could agree to that and so he made a promise to his friends. If I'm still here and healthy I will do this for someone else next year.
"I definitely didn't think that it would still be happening 30 years later," Rogers said, "but I knew Andy would keep his word, so it doesn't surprise me at all."
The 30th annual Andy Gilliland & Friends outing has only happened with the help of dozens, if not hundreds, of friends and family the past three decades who have rallied to let Gilliland keep his word to pay it forward.
Through the years, more than $300,000 has been raised to help 30 people battling cancer, some who have survived and some who have not.
What started with a card table outside the pro shop fielding 15 teams the first year has grown to a maxed out 36 teams most years with local businesses sponsoring holes and donating prizes, including this year's $10,000 in cash for a hole-in-one on 18.
People come from all over for the outing. This year Dallas, Florida, Houston, California, Cincinnati, Chicago, North Dakota and Finland will be represented.
"All these people come together because he has given us an opportunity to maybe be Andy for a day," said Richardson. "We all aspire to be like Andy, to live life like Andy and on this day we can."
There was, after all, a time when they weren't so sure Gilliland would live to see another day.
'It still chokes me up'
Gilliland had just returned from a trip to Florida to see a Notre Dame-Miami football game in November 1989 when he started feeling off. At first, he thought he had a bad case of the flu. He was achy and had a big lump on the back of his neck. As the weeks passed, he was tired, a kind of tired he had never felt.
During a shift at McDonald's days before Christmas, the symptoms became too much. The exhaustion was brutal.
"I remember going to the restroom and leaning up against the wall, just to get a break," said Gilliland, who now works as the routing specialist for New Palestine Schools. "I was in there so long somebody had to come in and check on me."
Gilliland went home to sleep and get ready for his shift the next day, which was Christmas Eve. But when he woke up, he barely had the strength to even get out of bed. Gilliland did something he had never done. He called in sick.
The doctor's visits that followed were a blurry whirlwind of blood work and a bone marrow biopsy that confirmed the diagnosis on Dec. 26, 1989.
"It still chokes me up. I remember being told," said Richardson. "All of us were inconsolable."
Richardson was crying so hard that his dad was at a loss for what to do to calm him down. He went to the library and, using the old card catalog system, looked up everything he could about leukemia.
"And he found out that they were starting to turn the corner on (the disease) and about bone marrow transplants, so that gave me personal hope," said Richardson. "We were all just so concerned and we didn't know what to do. So, we visited him, and we just hoped for the best."
Chemotherapy was started immediately, but after six weeks and no improvement, the doctor made things clear to Gilliland. His .300 batting average had dropped to .100.
“His words were, ‘You need to go for broke,’” Gilliland said, “'You need to have a bone marrow transplant.'"
Bone marrow transplants, which replace a patient's diseased blood-forming cells with healthy cells, are common now. In 1990 at IU Health, they weren’t.
While the first bone marrow transplant nationwide happened in 1956, the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit at the IU School of Medicine wasn’t established until 1984, six years before Gilliland's surgery. Indiana’s first bone marrow transplant had taken place just five years earlier at Riley Hospital for Children in 1985.
For Gilliland, there was no other option. He needed to get the transplant, but first he had to find a match. Little did he know, as he lay in the hospital bed, that his younger sister was plotting a cure.
'Just get the bone marrow in him so he doesn’t die'
Rebecca Gilliland was just 15 years old in 1990, a three-sport athlete at Greenfield-Central who adored her older brother. He would often come home from a late shift with a bag of McNuggets, fries and hot mustard sauce for her in hand.
While their parents, Jack and Carole, and older sister, Debbie, tried to shield Rebecca from the sadness, she had heard their whispers. She had heard the dire, hushed talk about transplants and survival rates and matches.
Rebecca will never forget the night she walked into the kitchen where her parents sat and made it clear what was going to happen. “You know, I’ll do whatever I need to do,” Rebecca said to them. “I’ll give Andy whatever he needs.”
Doctors tried to warn her about the excruciating pain of the test used all those decades ago to find out if she was a match. She didn't care.
As Andy lay in a hospital bed, tests revealed his little sister was as good of a match as they ever could have hoped for.
“They called it a perfect match. We don’t know all the medical details, but that’s what they called it,” Rebecca said. “They were floored.”
On May 22, 1990, Rebecca was in a Notre Dame basketball shirt with a gold cross necklace ready for the bone marrow transplant. Gilliland knew this transplant was his only chance. He had given Rebecca that cross necklace before the surgery so she would always remember him. So, she would never forget what this meant to him.
“I remember thinking, ‘Just get the bone marrow in him so he doesn’t die,’” Rebecca said. “I knew it was a means to an end.”
The transplant was a success. Now, the family just had to wait and see if the bone marrow would stick.
"At night, I would go to bed envisioning my bone marrow was a river and it was just clean,” Gilliland said. “I can remember every single night, it was just like a clean river flowing.”
Gilliland got past those awful days and nights. He got through those 30 minutes doctors called "now or never." He started walking through hospital hallways. He putted golf balls from his room to his friend in the room across the hall. He got his strength back.
In June of 1990, the day before his 24th birthday, Gilliland got the best gift ever. He went home.
'Just a caring person with a good heart'
The idea of doing something to help Gilliland came easy for Rogers. Not long before Gilliland's diagnosis, Rogers' best friend's son needed a bone marrow transplant, and a benefit was held for him in 1989 after Notre Dame won the national championship that January.
Gilliland and his mom, Carole, who also worked as a manager at McDonald's, bid on an autographed Lou Holtz championship ball. They gave $750.
"They were the biggest donor, so they were generous to help this family in need," Rogers said. "Carole didn't make a lot of money but she spent $750 on an auction, and I don't even know if they knew the family personally, so when this came up ..."
When Gilliland found himself in need, Rogers knew what he had to do. Rogers planted the seed and Gilliland's friends, and family stepped up to help Rogers put on the benefit that first year.
A 30-year run for a golf benefit is a rarity. For it to be held at the same course year after year is even more rare.
"I honestly think it's probably unheard of," said Heather O'Neal, pro shop manager and outing coordinator at Arrowhead. "I know that's the longest running one we have."
Through the years, people have told Gilliland he has done enough. He has paid it forward and then some. Maybe it's time to make that year's benefit the last benefit."
"And he's like, 'No, no, no,'" said O'Neal. "I honestly think he'll probably just keep it going. He's just a caring person with a good heart and he has helped so many families."
All the families he has helped have been special, but in 2008 as his own mother, Carole, battled an aggressive form of leukemia, Gilliland was honored to make her his recipient. She died in 2009 but is still with him every year as he helps others. His father, Jack, who died in 2017 after battling cancer, is there with him, too.
After each outing, there is food, festivities, raffle prizes drawn, and awards given for what's happened on the course that day. Many times, the person the outing is being held for shows up.
"And that's very emotional," said Richardson. "They will come out or their family will come out and speak and there is not a dry eye in the house."
This year's recipient is Jenni Palmer, a high school classmate of Gilliland's who graduated with him in 1984.
"The reason this has been able to go on for so long is because of Andy," said Richardson. "Because of who Andy is, everyone wants to be there for him, to help him keep this thing going."
For more information, to register or to donate, visit Andy Gilliland & Friends .
Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on X: @DanaBenbow. Reach her via e-mail: dbenbow@indystar.com
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Leukemia was killing him. He made a promise to friends: 'I knew Andy would keep his word'
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