Friends rally around UNLV assistant Keith Uperesa

UNLV offensive line coach Keith Uperesa (left) tutors a player at summer camp.

Popular UNLV assistant coach Keith Uperesa was busy tutoring high school players on the fine art of playing the offensive line during the past four days at Mike Sanford’s annual summer camp at Rebel Park.

Not bad for someone who just six weeks earlier had undergone 7 1/2 hours of major surgery at UCLA Medical Center to combat an aggressive form of thyroid cancer.

Uperesa, who will spend most of the summer undergoing radiation treatments to further combat the illness, spent five days in the hospital following the surgery. But he was back at work at the summer camp despite having several lymph nodes and a cancerous cyst removed from his neck. The surgery left a scar that starts at the bottom of one ear and makes a half-circle around the bottom of his neck and ends at the bottom of his other ear.

“I’m feeling better every day,” Uperesa, who said the disease was detected during a routine physical in February, said. “I’ve been undergoing physical therapy to try and get the range of motion and strength back in my shoulders again. When they opened me up, there were a lot of nerves that were disrupted and had to be put back together. It affected my upper body and shoulders more than I thought it would.”

Uperesa, who will return to the hospital in early July for the first round of two radiation treatments, said he was told his cancer “was caught fairly early.” He plans to be back coaching with the Rebels by the start of the regular season.

On Wednesday the former all-WAC star for BYU and former NFL offensive lineman for the Broncos and Raiders will find himself the center of attention at Coaches Tackling Cancer Golf Tournament at Fox Hollow Golf Course in American Fork, Utah.

Former Utah State quarterback Riley Jensen, who was a junior college All-American for Uperesa at Snow College in Ephraim, Utah, in 1996, and Alema Te’o, head of the Polynesian Coaches Association, organized the tournament and a silent auction to help raise funds to help Uperesa with his medical costs.

“We’re going to give (Uperesa) a big check to help him out,” Jensen said. “The thing that is a miracle about this is that we found out about his surgery on May 1 and we’ve managed to put this thing together in just six weeks. The love and donations coming through have just been fantastic and amazing. It’s a testimony to just what a great guy Keith is.”

Uperesa’s old BYU head coach, LaVell Edwards, will be on hand as will Sanford, Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham, Washington head coach Steve Sarkisian and UCLA offensive coordinator Norm Chow. BYU head coach Bronco Mendenhall and Utah State head coach Gary Anderson also will take part after working camps and clinics that day. And a number of former NFL players with ties to Uperesa will either play in the golf tourney or attend a luau afterward.

“It’s going to be a really good thing,” Sanford said. “Keith has touched a lot of people in the state of Utah that he either played with, coached with or played under him. There are a lot of Keith Uperesa fans who are pulling for him.”

Jensen said he has also received “hundreds” of donations for a two-week silent auction that will be on the website “coachestacklingcancer.com.” That site was still not operational yet as of this afternoon however.

Further information on the golf tournament, which begins at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, or the silent auction can be obtained by contacting Jensen at Rjensen@thefansports.com or by calling 801-867-4539.