Former Johnston High football coach Joe Acciardo, right, talks with Mike Beaumier, the team’s kicker, at a practice last week. Acciardo had to step down before the season after being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

The Providence Journal / Steve Szydlowski

JOHNSTON – In his many years as head coach of the Johnston High football team, Joe Acciardo has given his players plenty of pep talks about tackling adversity. There have been talks about rebounding from an injury, dealing with the disappointment of a tough loss and getting up for a game even when the team’s playoff hopes have long since ended, just to name a few. ( Extra: In his own words: Johnston High football coach on tackling cancer)

Having been involved in athletics as either a player or coach since childhood, Acciardo has always been able to draw on some past personal experience to help the Panthers get through whatever setback was before them. But nothing could prepare him for the speech he was forced to deliver to his players one July afternoon earlier this year.

Just weeks before Johnston was to begin preparing for the current season, Acciardo, 40, had to tell the group of teenagers that he would not be able to coach them this fall, having been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

“One of the things I would always tell my players, `Good players and good teams overcome adversity,’ “ he said earlier this week. “Then all of a sudden I’m sitting there and I’m thinking, I said this to a decade of players, about overcoming adversity and your mind is a powerful tool, you have to believe in what you want to achieve. And now all of a sudden it was on me. The biggest obstacle you can have was standing in front of me.”

What’s more, Acciardo never saw it coming. Except for being a little extra tired a year earlier, he felt fine when he stepped out of the shower one morning in mid-May and discovered an odd lump, the size of a golf ball, under his arm while drying off.

Feeling pretty certain that the hard mass wasn’t simply fatty tissue or a pulled muscle, Acciardo acted quickly, setting up an appointment with his physician, Dr. Brian Kwetkowski, the very next day. Although his blood work came back normal, an MRI showed that something was going on in Acciardo’s lymph nodes. A biopsy confirmed that he had non-Hodgkin lymphoma and that it had already progressed to stage 3 out of a possible four stages. (Subsequent bone marrow testing indicated that it had fortunately not progressed to the final stage.)

Finding out that the cancer was that advanced -- having spread to his chest, shoulder, spleen and stomach -- was difficult news for Acciardo to hear.

“I think my coaching experience tells you to prepare for everything, and I just really prepared for the doctor to say, `It’s stage 1. You’re in good shape. We caught it early, ‘ “ Acciardo said. “Because everything led to that. I didn’t have any other symptoms. I was fine. So [hearing that it was at stage 3], I can remember it was like someone punched me in the stomach.”

Once he knew exactly what he was dealing with, Acciardo and his oncologist, Dr. Eric Winer, decided to follow an aggressive course of treatment. He underwent six sessions of chemotherapy at Miriam Hospital, with each session lasting seven hours.

Then came the issue of telling everyone. Being a physical education teacher at Johnston High School in addition to coaching the football team, Acciardo knew he couldn’t keep his illness a secret. So he called a meeting with his team.

“That was tough, because how do you prepare for that?” said Acciardo, who was accompanied by his coaching staff and then-Johnston High principal Dr. Elizabeth Mantelli. “You can’t prepare for that. I just realized that I had to keep it simple, not be long-winded, for once, and just tell them the facts. I was worried about breaking down and not being able to get it all out, but I just told them: `Unfortunately, I found a lump, it’s cancer and I have to get sick to get better. That’s the challenge that I have.’ “

Throughout his 12-week treatment, Acciardo did his best to stay both physically and mentally strong. He continued to do modified workouts to keep his strength up.

“In my mind, I wanted to get myself back in shape,” he said. “That was the only thing I could control, so I would walk and jog and work out. A lot of people were concerned that I was overdoing it, but I had so much anxiety, it actually felt good to work out. I knew exercising would release some positive chemicals, endorphins. And I wanted to stay ahead of the curve because I knew that at the end of the cycle [of treatment], it would be a lot tougher.

“My analogy was, I wasn’t going to go over the mountain, I was going right through it,” he continued. “I had to picture myself at the other side of the mountain having this beat. ... I could see myself winning on the other side. How I was going to get there -- half of it was the doctors, the other half was God and then I just felt like I had to do my part here, and that was to stay positive and fight.”

Staying positive, though, posed one of the biggest challenges, he found.

“It’s tough because your mind is a powerful thing,” Acciardo said. “If you start thinking negative thoughts, I can tell you they keep coming in. And of course when you’ve got a 5-year-old and you start thinking that there’s that potential that he could grow up without a father, it kills you. And my thoughts of leaving him just weakened me so much that I couldn’t function. That was the biggest obstacle. So I knew I had to stay positive. I had to use this as a motivation. It’s almost like the coaching part of me said, `OK, this is adversity. How do you turn it around?’ That’s what I said: `I have to do this for him [Acciardo’s son Joey]. I can’t be weak.’ I didn’t want to lie there and just hang around to see what would happen. I wanted to at least fight. So I kept busy; I did a lot of praying and I just made that commitment that I wouldn’t think anything negative anymore.”

The tremendous outpouring of support from his family and friends helped him get through the ordeal, Acciardo says.

“I obviously had a lot of support from my family. They live close by and that helped,” he said. “And a lot of friends just really stepped it up. People would come by with food or a prayer card. And everybody that sent something or said that they would pray, I really felt it. When you have a lot of people pulling for you, I almost didn’t have time to sit back and feel bad.”

Being able to channel his energy into the football team was also very therapeutic.

Although he officially stepped down as head coach for a year and has had to be careful given that the chemo has weakened his immune system, Acciardo has remained involved with the team in a limited capacity -- staying in contact with Matt Mancuso, the assistant coach, who has taken over for Acciardo this season, stopping by practice when he has felt up to it and watching the games from the press box.

As for the players, they have dedicated the season to Acciardo. They have been wearing bracelets throughout the season that read, “Coach Believe,” and when Acciardo began losing his hair as a result of the chemo, his linemen all shaved their heads as a sign of solidarity.

“It’s harder for him than it is for us, so you just have to be there to support him and everything, and work harder,” said running back David Galligan, a senior co-captain with center/defensive end Joe Burgess. “He told everyone to make him proud. ... to keep doing what we were doing and to play the game like we’re supposed to.”

With the help of the Johnston Football Boosters Club, the Panthers have organized a benefit dinner for Acciardo, which will be held Wednesday night at the Kelley-Gazzerro Post 2812, 1418 Plainfield St., Cranston.

The dinner will serve as a celebration, thanks to the news Acciardo received from his doctor Friday afternoon: The results of his most recent PET scan show that the cancer is in remission.

“I was praying for good news,” Acciardo said. “[Dr. Winer] said, `Things look good,’ and I said, `OK, are there any surprises?’ He said, `No surprises.’ I have to go for tests every three months for a year, and then every four to six months for a year, and then once a year after that. But for now I’m clear. It worked and we wiped out the bad guys.”