Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones announced Wednesday that he survived a decadelong battle with Stage 4 melanoma, a type of skin cancer, that began in 2010.
The honcho of “America’s Team” confirmed the diagnosis in an interview with the Dallas Morning News, where he noted he’s cancer-free.
“I now have no tumors,” Mr. Jones said.
Stage 4 melanoma historically has a 22.5% five-year survival rate, according to the Melanoma Research Alliance.
The longtime face of the Cowboys reportedly alludes to his cancer during the upcoming Netflix series “America’s Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys.” Jones credits an experimental treatment for his recovery.
“I was saved by a fabulous treatment and great doctors and a real miracle [drug] called PD-1,” Mr. Jones told the Morning News. “I went into trials for that PD-1, and it has been one of the great medicines.”
PD-1, or programmed cell death protein 1, helps the body’s immune system identify and attack cancer cells.
The 82-year-old noted that he underwent surgery after his cancer metastasized, spreading from one area of the body to another. He had a pair of lung surgeries and two lymph node procedures after being diagnosed in June 2010.
First-year Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer described Jones’ fight with cancer as an “amazing story” and praised him for going public.
“I’m glad that Jerry shared it, just because I think it gives people hope,” Schottenheimer said Wednesday. “It gives people the strength to say … ‘Hey, you can beat this.’”
Schottenheimer, 51, used his last news conference of the Cowboys’ nearly monthlong stay in Southern California to talk about his own cancer diagnosis. He underwent surgery in 2003 for thyroid cancer at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
Then-Commanders owner Dan Snyder helped arrange Schottenheimer’s treatment two years after firing his father, Marty Schottenheimer, as coach. Brian Schottenheimer was Washington’s quarterbacks coach during the 2001 season, the same year Snyder himself was treated for thyroid cancer.
“It doesn’t discriminate against anybody,” Schottenheimer said. “And mine was certainly less serious, but I was 28 when I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. Nothing like Stage 4, nothing like what Jerry and other people have to go through. But you hear that word ‘cancer,’ and it scares the hell out of you.”
This article is based in part on wire service reports.
• Liam Griffin can be reached at lgriffin@washingtontimes.com.
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