Eli Gold documents cancer journey, explains why he kept fighting
Something felt off with Alabama football last season. No, not the two regular season losses to LSU and Tennessee. While unusual from a Nick Saban team, those happen in college football. Instead, it was who was not with the Crimson Tide during those games and the entire regular season– play-by-play voice Eli Gold.
The iconic voice of Alabama football, Gold was not in the booth during the 2022 season due to cancer. A position he had held since 1988, Chris Stewart took over in the booth last year. Gold was going through the difficult process of figuring out what was wrong with him before finding the cause of his health problems around the holidays.
“I went to bed one night,” Gold began while appearing on The Paul Finebaum Show. “Walked into the bedroom, got into bed, woke up the next morning and my legs didn’t work. My legs had stopped working for whatever reason in the overnight hours. Then we started doing all these tests. Did I have a stroke? Well, no I didn’t have a stroke. Did I have cancer? Well, the tests were negative for cancer. It turns out, the medicine they were giving me to get my legs working again — that medicine and all the steroids, they were masking what was really wrong with me which was indeed cancer.
“This past December, after six or seventh months of not knowing what is what, I got a terrible case of hiccups. It’s not one hiccup and then 20 seconds later another hiccup. The were one after the next after the next after the next. I couldn’t even catch my breath. They did tests for that and they found out I have large cell type B lymphoma and there was a cancerous growth in my esophagus. That was Christmas Eve of last year. Then New Year’s Eve, I took my first round of chemotherapy.”
When the cancer diagnosis finally came through, Gold said he “felt relieved.” As he laid out, nobody was quite sure what exactly Gold had. When the cell type B lymphoma was discovered, doctors were immediately able to begin treatment and have the broadcaster on the road to recovery.
The journey is now complete, with Gold ringing the bell earlier this year. Now, he is expected back in the booth for the 2023 season and everyone in Tuscaloosa is thrilled to have him back.
“Thank the good Lord I am healthy now,” Gold said. “I have been given the all-clear and I am looking forward to the start of the season.”
Eli Gold explains why he fought through cancer, intense treatment
An intense process for Gold, there were a couple of reasons he fought throughout. First up was his family, both his wife and daughter. The latter would be getting married within the next year and Gold wanted to make sure he was there for her special day.
“There were two things that kept me fighting,” Gold said. “I was fighting for my family. My daughter is getting married in 2024, next calendar year. I wanted to be here to walk her down the aisle. And of course, my wife who has been absolutely spectacular in helping me and being a caregiver in all of this.”
Outside of his immediate family, Gold wanted to win the battle for Alabama fans out there. When Gold gets back in the booth for the Crimson Tide’s season opener against Middle Tennessee on Sept. 2, he will be doing so thinking about those who supported him along the way.
“But I was also fighting for my Bama family. My desire to get back into the booth and reconnect with the Alabama fans… I said ‘when I get back on the air, I am going to be broadcasting not only for our wonderful Alabama fans. But I going to be broadcasting for the millions of people who are going through exactly what I did.'”