‘Get one day better, every day’: Coach Ed Helbig inspires Baldwin athletes through cancer battle

By: Chris Harlan
Saturday, May 4, 2024 | 8:44 AM

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Baldwin track coach Ed Helbig has a favorite saying that he offers up as motivation to athletes on his team: “Get one day better, every day.”

With tears in his eyes Friday at the Baldwin Invitational, Helbig shared a story about how the cross country team took a detour to his house last fall, and how the runners showed up at his door wearing shirts with that message.

It’s his go-to saying, but one with a newfound meaning for Helbig, who has waged a yearlong battle with esophageal cancer.

“The bus stops in front of my house, all the kids come out and I said, ‘I’ve got to (coach) again,” said Helbig, who has continued to lead Baldwin’s track team despite cancer treatments that often left him exhausted and melted pounds from an already lean frame.

He was busy again Friday, setting up hurdles and overseeing events, like he’s done every spring for decades.

This is Helbig’s 49th year coaching track at Baldwin as the team’s head coach or earlier an assistant, and his influence on the sport stretches throughout Western Pennsylvania. He is chairman of the WPIAL cross country/track steering committee and volunteers at meets throughout the region.

He says he’ll be at West Mifflin’s stadium on Tuesday for the WPIAL team championships and will return there for the last-chance meet next Friday. Then it’s off to Slippery Rock for the WPIAL individual championships the following week.

Rich Wright, as Baldwin’s cross country coach and Helbig’s longtime track assistant, said he’s not surprised. Wright had found himself urging Helbig to slow down, without success.

“He has missed no meets whatsoever, and he doesn’t leave early and he doesn’t come late,” Wright said. “He’s a champ. This is his love, and he’s just awesome. The kids love him. That’s who he is.”

Helbig said coaching at this year’s invite seemed unlikely a few months ago while undergoing radiation and chemotherapy. The 72-year-old admits he still has good days and bad days.

“I’ll go through days where I come up here to practice and I’m just exhausted when I get home,” Helbig said. “Tomorrow, I’ll sleep all day. I won’t be able to do anything. I’ll be comatose.”

Helbig realized something was wrong with his health just over a year ago. He tried to drink water from a bottle while at a Peter Township track meet and couldn’t swallow.

“I spit it up,” Helbig said. “I took another drink and couldn’t get it down. I called my doctor and said something’s wrong.”

The first test was an endoscopy — a long, thin tube with a camera — and that uncovered a mass in his esophagus.

“Four days later, they said it’s cancerous,” Helbig said, “and we have to find out how bad it is.”

Next came a PET scan, which finds cancer elsewhere in the body. The test revealed his cancer had reached Stage 4, meaning it had spread to other organs.

“They said my lung looked like a checkerboard,” Helbig said. “All of my lymph nodes around my chest were covered. My esophagus was covered. I had it in lymph nodes up in my neck.

“Everywhere.”

Helbig said he searched out information about his cancer online and found “you last between one and two years.” His oncologist, Dr. Diane Buchbarker of Allegheny Health Network, agreed with his desire to take an aggressive approach to treatment.

Buchbarker also guided Helbig’s wife, Lynne, through cancer treatments in 2016. The first step, the doctor told Helbig, was to stop relying on information found on the internet.

“She said, ‘Don’t read that stuff. I’m taking care of you. Don’t worry,’” Helbig said with a laugh. “That’s what she’s done. It’s been great.”

Helbig completed 25 rounds of radiation. When that wasn’t enough, he underwent a dozen chemotherapy sessions.

He’s now moved on to immunotherapy, designed to boost his own immune system to fight cancer cells.

“I had a CAT scan done on Friday of last week. Everything is clear,” Helbig said. “All of the lesions are gone on my liver. Everything is clear. The only thing I have is this mass in my chest.”

He was given two options for that.

The first was major surgery to remove the mass. He said that would’ve involved cutting and reattaching his esophagus to his stomach, an operation that came with a four-month recovery. The second was a newer treatment called photodynamic therapy to keep the mass in check.

He chose option two.

Photodynamic therapy involved being “injected with chemo-like medicine that’s attracted by the cancer,” Helbig said. “And 48 hours later, they go in and hit it will a laser that kills it. And 48 hours after that, they go and hit it with another laser. Then they go in and scrape it off.”

That procedure was done twice, most recently in February.

The mass prevented Helbig from eating for eight months. He relied on a feeding tube and said his weight dropped from 185 pounds to his current 135. He still wasn’t able to eat after the first photodynamic treatment, so he returned three weeks later for another.

The second time, he ended up in the recovery room feeling like “someone was jumping on my chest” while he was sedated.

“The doctor said, ‘I scraped the living daylight out of this tumor,” Helbig said. “You will be able to eat in two weeks. And I was. Now I can eat pasta, baked beans, soups — anything that’s soft. I’ve been able to each chicken, and ground meat I can get down if I cut it small enough. No steak. They said if you can get it down, go ahead.”

Before the Baldwin Invite, he ate a bowl of chili.

He still receives IV fluids three times weekly. His appetite comes and goes, but said everyone in his family encourages him to eat. His two daughters, Jess and Aimee, call him daily. He said even his grand kids send him text message reminders.

“Some mornings I get up and I’ll eat everything,” Helbig said. “Other mornings, I don’t feel like eating anything. They said it’s going to ride that wave.”

The Baldwin Invitational celebrated its 50th anniversary this year and former coach and founder Chuck McKinney was on hand Friday. Helbig, who took over for McKinney, grew the event into the meet it is today.

Organizers were anticipating 2,600 athletes from 62 school districts.

Helbig said he relied more on his assistant coaches to run the track program this season and praised the work of Maddie Voelker and Mike McLaughlin. He said Wright also took on greater responsibility.

“Rich has been a godsend,” Helbig said. “I tell everyone that I have four brothers by my mother and father. But I have a fifth brother here and that’s Rich. He’s constantly on my back. ‘Sit down. Go get something to eat.’”

Wright was behind the shirts and the team trip to Helbig’s house.

“What are you going to do for someone you love?” Wright said. “It’s Ed, and it’s the right thing to do. … I love him like a brother and the guy has done so much for track and field.”

Helbig was inducted in February into the Baldwin Athletic Hall of Fame, along with Wright. Helbig said he isn’t thinking too far ahead, but retiring after year 49 just doesn’t seem right.

“I’d really like to get to 50,” he said. “If I can get one more year in, then I might decide it’s time to go. … But at the end of this year, I’m going to evaluate and see what’s going on.”

He recognizes that coaching now seemed doubtful just a few months ago.

“When I was going through the chemo and the radiation, I was so sick and said: ‘I don’t know if I’m going to be able to coach,” Helbig said. “My wife told me, ‘Let’s just wait and see. It’s still early.’”

Chris Harlan is a TribLive reporter covering sports. He joined the Trib in 2009 after seven years as a reporter at the Beaver County Times. He can be reached at charlan@triblive.com.

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