Texas Wesleyan’s new basketball coach has cancer. ‘It will come back. I don’t know when’

Considering where he started, and where his life was headed, Brian Wanamaker was built to handle something called, “Multiple myeloma.”

It started in 2021, when he noticed pain in his lower back. Some days his body hurt so much he could barely move. He routinely tried Epsom salt baths, but that was a Band-Aid over a wound he couldn’t find.

Multiple visits, and tests, by multiple doctors didn’t give him answers. Because they had none.

Shortly before the birth of his daughter in 2022, a doctor told Wanamaker he has a rare cancer of the plasma cell.

“They don’t know the cause of it, but it will come back and I don’t know when. There is no cure,” Wanamaker said. “I am in remission now, and have been for a while. I can live a long time with this, and I expect to.”

He delivers this sobering message like someone who admits to having a summer cold. He can because he knows life can be so much worse.

The former assistant at Texas Wesleyan University was recently named the head coach of the men’s basketball team after Brennen Shingleton resigned to take a job in the private sector. How Wanamaker arrived to this point is the movie you may not believe.

From North Philadelphia to Fort Worth to Lithuania to Fort Worth

Google “North Philly” and what pops is not good. That’s the part of Philadelphia where Wanamaker was raised. It’s one of the worst neighborhoods in America.

“We grew up in poverty; we didn’t have much,” Wanamaker said. “We were going to the worst middle school in Philadelphia.”

Most Americans can’t conceive some of the realities that are every day life where Wanamaker grew up. Think about the HBO show, “The Wire” and go from there.

Wanamaker and his twin brother, Brad, were both exceptional basketball players. As eighth graders they were invited to attend Roman Catholic High School in central Philadelphia.

“We went from the worst school to the best school; we had no idea it was an all boys school,” he said. “For us to go to a school of that prestige, it was so different. We had to wear ties. Slacks. We went from a school where we didn’t do any work to a school that took academics seriously.

“It was the best decision we ever made. It changed our life. It changed our families’ lives.”

Shortly after arriving at Roman Catholic, Brian and Brad realized they might be able to play in college.

Brad Wanamaker would finish his high school career as one of the top players in Philadelphia, and went on to play for the University of Pittsburgh under head coach Jamie Dixon.

Brian had a slew of interest from similar programs, but injuries started to pile up. A broken foot. Another broken foot. Broken thumb. He’d play through anything. That’s what a guy from North Philly does. A broken foot is nothing.

“I grew up watching Allen Iverson, and he played through anything,” Wanamaker said.

Brian went to Central Connecticut State, in 2007. He hated it. He was hurt, again, and he’d play with a limp. Near the end of the season, he told coach Howie Dickenman that he was leaving the team.

“Your family is coming up tomorrow to surprise you at the game,” Dickenman told Wanamaker.

Wanamaker stayed a little longer, and then transferred to a junior college in Jacksonville, Texas that no longer exists. Lon Morris College was not an elite destination for top basketball players.

It was a place to play, and go to school until it closed in 2012 because of financial problems.

“It was completely different, and I was miserable,” Wanamaker said. “I disliked basketball. I played hurt.”

The saving grace was the assistant coach, Ricky Doston. When Dotson left for Texas Wesleyan to become an assistant coach, he “brought” Wanamaker with him.

TWU was Wanamaker’s third college, and while his brother flourished at Pittsburgh Brian never could get the right spot.

“That first semester, I didn’t say a word to anybody. But it was a re-set,” he said. “When I came to Texas Wesleyan, I could be myself.“

In his two years playing at TWU, he was an All-American and conference player of the year. In 2011 he was drafted by the NBA’s G League, and played internationally for six seasons.

In 2018, he was in the process of returning to America after playing for a season in Lithuania when he was arrested.

“Two days in prison. No food. No visa. They said I was traveling illegally,” Wanamaker said. “I was like, ‘You can’t be serious.’”

For American basketball players who play overseas, especially in Eastern Europe, these sorts of stories are not uncommon. Eventually the case was settled, but he was “banned” for two years from returning to that country.

Great time to retire. He was getting married. Texas Wesleyan offered him a chance to do what he planned to do since he was 14, when a coach gave both he and his brother the opportunity to change their lives at Roman Catholic.

Coaching with Cancer

Wanamaker returned to TWU in the fall of 2019 as an assistant coach. He married his wife, Stephanie, and the coupled settled into a nice life. The type of life that he could never have envisioned when he was a kid running around North Philly.

When he was diagnosed with cancer, his first instinct was that it will be OK.

“I am optimistic, and I thought, ‘They’ll have to do what they have to do and it will go away,’” he said. “My wife started crying, and I couldn’t control it after that. I just don’t want people to be sad.

“Because when you are sitting there and you hear that word from a doctor, the first thing you think of is death.”

Cancer has not been death for Brian Wanamaker.

He has had chemotherapy, and the cancer is in remission. Three days a week, he takes six pills a day. The other days, he takes five.

When Shingleton left, TWU only had to look at the bench to find the best candidate. He just happens to have a serious medical condition.