Don and
Scott Robbs have partnered for University of Hawaii baseball broadcasts
in the past, but they'll be a team on a nightly basis now.
They feel fortunate to work together -- and both feel
lucky to be alive.
Since
August, Don, 77, has dealt with bypass surgery, a stroke, surgery to
clear blockage in a carotid artery and hernia surgery. The veteran of 37
years as the voice of UH baseball is close to fully recovered, and
ready to resume duty on Friday when the Rainbow Warriors open their
season against Oregon at Les Murakami Stadium.
It will help Don that Scott, who has been there with him through his recovery, will also be in the booth.
"When
this first happened, he told me 'I think my baseball career is over,' "
Scott said. "But that's what helps keep him going."
And today, Scott, 47, publicly reveals his own serious health challenges.
"I went through a physical thing," Don said Sunday. "He went through a mental thing."
Scott
Robbs has salvaged his career, marriage and possibly his life in the
past four years by taking positive steps to deal with panic disorders,
severe depression and alcohol abuse. You might not know it if you didn't
see him every day, because Scott was good at putting up a lighthearted
front.
"I was
good at masking. But I hit my bottom, I couldn't take it anymore. My
life was a mess and couldn't handle it anymore," he said. "I knew if I
didn't do something about it, I was in real trouble. Had I kept on going
the way I was going, I don't think I'd be here. Maybe not alive."
There were
work difficulties, too. Scott was the UH volleyball play-by-play
broadcaster, but due to agoraphobia (anxiety in open or crowded areas)
he feared flying. On one trip, a panic attack kept him in his hotel room
in El Paso, Texas, and he had to reschedule his flight home to the next
day.
Finally,
on a day in Nov. 2010, when he was supposed to get on a plane to
broadcast the WAC volleyball tournament, Scott instead checked himself
into Castle Medical Center.
"It got
to a point where I knew I can't keep doing this, I'm going to die and I
didn't want to die. I told (Dori) I was going to Castle. She revealed
that if I'd gone on that trip she was going to leave me."
Scott
said he knew something was wrong from the time he was 18. But it took
the sixth therapist and the third medication for effective treatment. He
got both of them on the three-day visit to Castle four years ago.
Don now
lives with Scott, Dori, Iliahi and Oliana, and Don credits them with
helping him recover well and soon enough to return to his perch above
the diamond.
Through it all, they've kept their sense of humor.
"I can hear him snoring, he can hear me snoring," said Scott.
"If you DON'T hear me snoring, come check on me," his father replied.
-- Dave Reardon, Star-Advertiser