The long road back from cancer, from the longest of all fourth-and-longs, from what was supposed to be the death of his football life and maybe worse than that, leads to East Rutherford this morning for Mark Herzlich, a true giant, in every sense of the word.
He is an inspiration who dreamed of playing in the NFL as a 10-year-old boy, who refused to stop dreaming about yesterday, the day he chose the Giants over the Eagles and Ravens and signed a free-agent contract that will give him the shot he never stopped believing would happen, even against all odds.
Herzlich, as he began his improbable journey toward the Timex Performance Center and toward the NFL, recalled for The Post yesterday the fateful day in May 2009 — five months after junior season as a star linebacker at Boston College — when he was diagnosed with a rare and deadly bone cancer in his leg called Ewing’s sarcoma. The doctors at University of Pennsylvania Health Systems in Philadelphia told him: “We’re pretty sure we can save your leg. Your athletic days are over.”
“It was a moment of shock when you get told,” Herzlich said in a phone interview. “Your whole world basically is turned around. It’s a terrible thing. I felt sweaty . . . I felt hot. . . . You feel your breath drip out of you. I went from being on top of the world thinking I was gonna get drafted in the first round to not playing football at all.”
He was asked if he was afraid he might die.
“Yeah,” Mark Herzlich said, “I was afraid.
“There were a lot of unknowns at the time.”
Had the cancer spread from his leg? Would the chemotherapy and radiation work?
“There was definitely fear of not making it,” he said.
All his life, Herzlich had been the Natural, a 250-pound tackling machine who loved the game with a passion. “This is a kid who was Superman,” his father, Sandy, said earlier in the day.
Now he had to tackle the most feared nightmare in the open field.
“Nightmare is a good term,” Sandy Herzlich said. “You kind of feel the world’s dropped out from underneath you when they first tell you that. You spend some time trying to figure out why. You come to the conclusion there is no ‘why.’ You come to grips with the fact that something that devastating, that random, can happen to somebody in your family.”
For a while, Mark Herzlich retreated to the solitude of his bedroom that night.
“There were a lot of questions going through my mind,” he said. “ ‘Why me? Why does this happen?’ “
But soon, he stopped asking questions and by the time he reached the kitchen, he had vowed to find answers.
“He came downstairs,” Sandy Herzlich said, “and basically said, ‘They may know a lot about cancer.
‘They don’t know a lot about me.
‘Don’t worry, Dad. I’m gonna beat this.’ ”
He would lose his hair, lose a season with his Boston College teammates, but never lose his spirit or fight. He turned a corner when surgery that would have removed the femur and replaced it with a cadaver bone was dismissed.
“I did have a surgery (Nov. 23, 2009), but it was to put a titanium rod through my leg,” Mark Herzlich said.
Fast forward to the 2010 season home opener against Weber State, on 9-4 — Sept. 4. Mark Herzlich just happened to wear No. 94. “One of those messages from God,” Sandy Herzlich said.
Mark Herzlich charged out of the tunnel, exactly the way he imagined it, into a roaring stadium, and maybe there was a dry eye in the house, maybe not.
“I ran through the tunnel,” he said, “and all I saw was a blur of maroon and gold.”
He acknowledged the student section and then went out and beat Weber State. “The advice he gives other cancer patients is, ‘You gotta set a tangible target,’ “ Sandy Herzlich said.
Mark Herzlich, a versatile 250-pounder with six percent body fat, was the 2008 ACC Defensive Player of the Year.
“We think he’s a prospect, but let’s just say I was in favor of the decision to sign him,” John Mara said.
Mara is a BC guy. Tom Coughlin coached there.
Sandy Herzlich grew up in West Hartford a Giants fan.
“Cancer probably cost you
$15 million,” Sandy Herzlich said jokingly to his son Monday night.
Says Mark Herzlich, Football Giant: “Yeah, it sure did. But there’s no hard feelings, really. It has made me the person I am today.”
Priceless.
steve.serby@nypost.com