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Photo by Shawn Bowles.
Josh Floyd and his mother, Jeana.
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Photo courtesy of Josh Floyd.
Josh Floyd, 9, his mother, Jeana, and brother, Nick, 6, after Jeana completed treatments for breast cancer.
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Photo courtesy of Josh Floyd.
Josh Floyd and his mom, Jeana, in May 2020.
Long before being the head football coach at Hewitt-Trussville — even prior to taking over as head coach at his alma mater, Shiloh Christian School in Arkansas — a teacher assigned Josh Floyd and his fellow nine-year-old classmates to find a hymn that was important to them.
Floyd wrote “Great is Thy Faithfulness” at the top of his paper.
“He said, and this might not have been exactly it, but ‘God has been faithful while my mother has breast cancer,’” said Jeana Floyd, the Hewitt-Trussville coach’s mother. “And so, I think, we tried to keep life as normal as we could. We didn’t want [Josh and his brother] to be frightened, and I think the Lord permitted me to be healthy enough in the midst of that that I was still mom.”
Jeana was 35 years old on Jan. 10, 1990, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Josh was nine, old enough to understand something was wrong, young enough to maybe not quite grasp the future effects. She went through six weeks of radiation, followed by six months of chemotherapy.
She hopes Josh learned from that experience about “perseverance in difficult times, you know, and trusting the Lord,” she said. “I would hope Josh would affirm that. That was the example, you know, that he saw from us. Just try not to instill fear in them, letting them know God was with us.”
The example resonated. Josh remembers his mother founding the Cancer Network of Northwest Arkansas, a support group for cancer patients and their families.
“I’ve seen her walk through things, you know, with families that have gone through it, and encouraged them,” he said. “She’s lost friends along the way from it. I’ve seen her walk through those moments as well. But I think, from my standpoint, just learning from it, is she had a situation that was bad in her life, a tough situation, and from that she learned and she grew, and she tried to help others through that. That was something that, again, at that age, did I totally understand? Probably not. But the older you get, [you realize] she didn’t have to pour into other people. I think it just taught me a life lesson that when things do go bad, if you can use those — allow the Lord to use it, use negative things — to try to help other people.”
Jeana published a book, “An Uninvited Guest,” about her cancer journey. She calls it the “pink book.”
“The Lord just placed a deep place in my heart for cancer patients,” she said. And, you know, it's a family experience. It's not just individual, and it affects the spouse in certain ways. It affects parents.
It affects children. But pretty much everybody's life has been touched by cancer either personally, through a family member or a close friend. Everybody knows somebody with cancer.”
Josh remembers reading the book and thinking his mother was “super strong through something that’s very difficult.”
“Again, as a kid, you don’t necessarily think your mom was just some super-strong person,” he said. “Now, I know all that moms and wives do. You appreciate it a lot more the older you get. When you’re a kid, you don’t really notice that as much. Seeing mom go through that, you’ve just got to be pretty tough. You’ve got to be mentally tough and physically tough.”
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. It’s become increasingly obvious annually on high school football fields across the country. Pink T-shirts cover the bleachers. Players pull pink socks to their knees and slide pink armbands over their wrists. Pink tape is wrapped over black cleats and the pre-game banner is colored with the recognizable pink ribbon. Jeana remembers either Peyton or Parker, two of her grandsons and two of Josh’s three sons, getting pink bands on their braces.
“Oh, it was so sweet,” she said. “Watching them wear either pink bands or socks, it never stops touching my heart.”
Josh hasn’t worn a ton of pink over the years, mostly because coaches aren’t typically taped up or wearing apparel like wristbands. Fans can’t see their socks under khaki pants. This October, he may wear a pink wristband or a pink hat, if Hewitt-Trussville has them. Regardless, Jeana will just be thrilled to attend one of those October games, watching the youngest of Josh’s sons, Jack, play on a Thursday night before Peyton and Parker take the field on Friday night.
“I do remember specifically begging God to let me live long enough to see the boys grow up,” Jeana said. “And he did answer that prayer. And then I prayed, ‘Lord, I would love to meet their wives.’ And he blessed me with more years to see them marry my lovely daughters-in-law. And then I said, ‘Lord, I'm really greedy. I'd like to live to see my grandchildren.’ And Peyton was first and he's a senior this year. So, the Lord has been extremely gracious, and I have had no recurrence of cancer. I've had many years now of health.”
