Many of you probably know Steve Mendelsohn,
W2ML, an avid DXer and former Hudson Division director for a number of years.
If so, you may be interested in this story which was just posted on the NY Jets
website about Steve’s current situation.
Dennis, K2SX
Posted 13 hours ago
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Jets
fans come in all shapes, sizes, ages and conditions.
Take
Steve Mendelsohn. He's 67 years old and back in his heyday he stood about
5'9" and 154 pounds. He follows sports and football and he's a longtime
resident of the metropolitan area, but his hobby of ham radio brought him to
the NFL and the Jets later in life. He's not a member of the team, but he's
around the team — has been since he became the Jets' frequency
coordinator in 1999 when the league decided it needed that kind of technician
around all its teams every game.
He's
a polished public speaker. He's rubbed elbows with more famous folks than you
can shake a rolled-up People magazine at. He's won an Emmy.
Despite
all these lines on his résumé, Mendelsohn was a little nervous when, at the end
of the Aug. 17 practice at the Atlantic Health Jets Training Center that he was
attending, head coach Rex Ryan beckoned for him to come from the sideline into
the middle of a forest of large green Sequoias — otherwise known as the
Jets' breakdown huddle — and then said:
"Steve,
I want you to tell the team who you are."
"I
call it a fantasy moment," Mendelsohn reflected. "Every Jets fan
would love to have an opportunity to talk to the entire team, to be given that
incredible honor. This was the family, this was the core of the family concept.
I honestly don't even know what I said. I cracked a joke. I spoke from the
heart. I told them why I really enjoyed the privilege of being the gameday
coordinator for the Jets.
"I
liken it to the President or the Pope. It was one of the most memorable moments
of my life. ... I'm not an 'awesome, dude' person, but it was an awesome
experience."
As
Ryan and general manager Mike Tannenbaum knew and the players found out, it was
also an experience with his extended family that he needed, that would help him
down the road ahead. Because Mendelsohn is dying of cancer.
Tackling "the Little Monster"
"The
people at ABC, my primary employer, the Jets, most of the people in my life are
aware I have pancreatic cancer," Mendelsohn said. "I found out in
January when I was having what we thought were digestive problems. It turned
out to be much more serious. I was at that point at Stage 4, the worst it can
get, and that's altered pretty much my whole life."
Mendelsohn
began chemotherapy treatments at
"It's
the size of a golf ball. We're trying to get it down to the size of a pea or a
quarter," he said of his tumor. "We're trying to get the little
monster under control."
Mendelsohn
is taking on his cancer with openness and humor. Partly that's because, as he
says, "You get to the point where the best thing you can do is laugh at
it."
"I
can't believe how positive he is," tight end
Mendelsohn's
approach is also partly because he is a humorous, even sardonic, and
erudite gentleman by nature.
He
grew up "in a little town on
Mendelsohn
began working at CBS News, where for a decade he was Walter Cronkite's
engineer. From there it was a short hop to becoming the Eye Network's
transmission engineer for many press pools in this country and abroad and for
events involving Presidents Gerald Ford,
Also
while in the line of duty, he has been blessed by Pope
Production Trucks, Football Sound and an
Emmy
Then
came Mendelsohn's ABC period. The network, well aware of his work on overseas
remote broadcasts, threw him onto a team whose work would have worldwide
implications — designing the network's new fleet of state-of-the-art
Monday Night Football mobile production trucks.
Early
in his tenure, he was in another working group summoned by ABC Sports legend
Roone Arledge to discuss how to get those Monday night viewers more into the
game. And so Mendelsohn became a champion of wireless microphones on the field
and a key member of the team that developed those ubiquitous parabolic mikes on
the sidelines.
One
more stop in this illustrious career would be 2000 and "Millennium Around
the World." You may recall hearing from someone in each of the globe's 24
timezones on ABC as the new year dawned there. How in the world do you sort out
all of the satellite, telephone and intercommunications issues for such a
project? Mendelsohn composed one of the most complicated communications systems
ever devised for television. That's what he won his Emmy for.
We
could throw in his work as the communications director for a Super Bowl or two,
for the
All
of it was prelude to his affiliation with the Jets.
"In
the late '90s, the NFL went to radio beltpacks," Mendelsohn explained of
the method by which coaches communicated with the QB on the field and other
coaches in the booth, "and they found there was interference from many different
sources — everybody shares the same radio spectrum.
"It
got to the point where there was interference from broadcasters to the
beltpacks and vice versa, because nobody knew the complexity of the 'universe,'
if you will. So the NFL put together a group of technical assistants, the
gameday frequency coordinators. Our job is to make sure there is no
interference between the coaches and the broadcasters."
And
by broadcasters he means anyone who's broadcasting. TV and radio stations,
radios used in the stadium by state police, local police, stadium security,
ticket takers, the wireless used by writers in the press box. The primary
mission is to protect the coaches' belt pack frequencies and if there is
interference, to get that broadcaster to another frequency during the game.
"On
a slow day we use about 110 frequencies," he explained. "On a Sunday
night or Monday night game, we'll use as many as 230. My job is to park 230
cars in a parking lot built for about 100."
A Member of the Family Just Celebrating
Life
Steve
and his second wife, Heidi, handled those tasks with aplomb — up until
his illness intervened as the Jets began last season's playoff push. Now he's
got a much larger goal ahead. His prospects, he acknowledges, aren't good. Yet
consider that another of his remarkable traits is a resilience that would do
any Green & White player proud.
"I
was told six years ago that I had lung sarcoid, that I had a year to live and I
should get my affairs in order. In January I was told I had three to five months
to live," he said with a knowing smile. "Now what my doctors tell me
is 'You really don't listen well, do you?' "
"Steve
just celebrates life," said defensive tackle
Steve
Mendelsohn plans tol be here Sunday night to see the Jets kick off their 2011
season at MetLife Stadium against the Dallas Cowboys. And if his toughness and
his heartfelt appreciation for his big green family have anything to say about
it, he will be around in the new year to see how they fare in the
playoffs.
"The
organization has very much taken me to heart and made me a part of their family
by the way they've treated me," he said. "Two years ago, Woody
"When
I'm asked if I'm a Jets fan, I say, 'No, I'm a fan of the Jets.' "
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