Sometimes football players are bigger then life to us. They are men that go out and get hit a hundred times in one sunny Saturday afternoon. They spend hours a day working out and getting their body to be strong to fight off the other team or to help with the possibility of injury.

Vada Murray was a defensive back for the Michigan Wolverines under Bo Schembechler back in 1990 with team mates Desmond Howard, Elvis Grbac, Corwin Brown, and Trip Welborne. Those were the days! Bo lasting lessons included: "He taught us mental toughness," said the 6-foot-4-inch Murray, sitting in his Ann Arbor home last week. "He taught us that no matter what your adversity, roll your sleeves up and smack it in the mouth."

Right after college, Vada joined the Ann Arbor Police Department and has been there for 17 years. I wish that is where the update ended for Vada and his family.

Less then two months ago, the fit Murray noticed a little love handle under the left side of his rib cage. A CT scan showed a mass on his heart, and he was set for the surgical removal of what he expected would be a benign mass. Instead, Vada and his family got the worse possible news, that he has Stage 3b lung cancer, one level above down from Stage 4, the worst diagnosis. Vada is 41 years old and never smoked or ever been around smokers.

Vada is fighting this disease daily with his wife Ann and his three children ages 10, 6 and 3. "They picked the wrong person to mess with," Murray said. "There's no way in hell I'm going to let this cancer get to me. It's not going to happen. And that's what keeps me going. I see it as a challenge. I think I can control this outcome."

The doctors haven't given him a time frame but they know they can't cure him. So Murray is focusing on exercise, nutrition, and rest, and to try to maintain his daily routine as much as possible while he goes through the regular treatments.

Sometimes you wonder how these thing could happen to such an top athlete who was a high school star at Cincinnnati's Moeller High School.