Smart medicine

We live in a work-until-your-drop world these days, because we live in an economy where the human resource is as disposable as it's ever been. Take a little time for yourself, or ease up on the throttle, and there's no end to the line of desperate people waiting to take your place.

So maybe it seems odd that a member of one of the most exclusive job markets on the planet is choosing now to step away for a few days.

His name is Tyronn Lue, and he's the coach of the NBA Cleveland Cavaliers, and it's the third week of March. The playoffs aren't here just yet, but you can smell 'em in the wind. And yet Lue is choosing to jump off the hamster wheel for the time being, mainly because he's 40 years old and would like to live to see 41.

He is, it seems, simply worn down by the pressures of the job. His health is in the tank. He's having chest pains. And so he's taking a break.

And the Blob, reaching back in its memory almost 40 years, says good for him.

Let me tell you a story, boys and girls.

This happened in 1980, and it involved a crewcut, intense man in Anderson, In., also a basketball coach, also 40 years old. His name was Bob Fuller, and he ran the basketball program at Highland High School. He was a superb coach, noteworthy in particular for his knowledge and mastery of the zone defense. His teams at Highland, usually terrifically undersized, excelled nonetheless because they played the most technically perfect zone the Blob has ever seen on the high school level. Watching the Scots play that zone was like watching the inner workings of a Swiss watch: Every piece in the right place, every shift so well-coordinated it almost looked choreographed.

Anyway, one week in 1980, Bob came down with a horrendous chest cold. He was desperately ill, but, being Bob, he refused to ease off the throttle. That Friday night, his Scots -- who would go on that season to be ranked No. 1 in the state -- played at Lapel. Bob apparently looked so bad on the bench in the first half that the Lapel coach, Dallas Hunter, actually went into the Highland locker room at halftime and offered to forfeit the game, since Lapel was down plenty.

Fuller said something to the effect of no, no, I'll be fine.

He no sooner got the words out of his mouth than he suffered a massive heart attack and collapsed. Rushed to the hospital, he died later that evening.

And so when I read about Lue stepping aside for a time because he was having chest pains, I immediately thought of Bob Fuller. And then thought "Thank God he's doing this."

Better safe than sorry is a cliché with all the tread worn off it. But it works here.