Simon Keith golf outing offers llamas, cigars, great cause

About a half-hour before the shotgun start of the Simon Keith Foundation golf tournament Friday at Siena Golf Course, two llamas were milling about the No. 1 tee box.

If you didn’t know better, you might surmise the golf outing was mostly about Keith, a former UNLV soccer star and one of the world’s longest surviving heart transplant recipients, having fun and playing golf and smoking cigars with other people from Canada.

About 15 minutes before the shotgun, another Canadian — this one younger and sporting a black fedora with a checkered band — arrived. And because you knew this was about more than golf and cigars and llamas milling about, 16-year-old Andrew Westerlund of Vancouver, British Columbia, was asked about his story.

This is it in a nutshell, which may not be the best way to tell it — it doesn’t convey the anguish and emotional angst. But one would have been heartless to ask Andrew Westerlund to relive the details:

• When he was 12, he underwent a heart transplant; he was back in school in 2½ months.

• Eighteen months later, he was diagnosed with a rare form of lymphoma. After chemotherapy, he is in remission.

• In April, he was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder, also rare. He has lost much of his hearing.

• In August, he competed in the 2016 Canadian Transplant Games in Toronto.

Andrew Westerlund won four gold medals, which he wore around his neck.

“When I was 12, I had a heart transplant; a couple of years later, I was feeling perfectly fine — then I was diagnosed with cancer, ” he said in a measured tone.

“Cancer sucks.

“But that’s gone now.”

Andrew nodded and mustered a tight smile and said the Transplant Games were great. And that Simon was great for setting up his training, and for being an email pal, and for raising lots of money for life-saving organ transplants through his golf outing and the banquet that would follow.

“You can go through the storm and come out on the other side,” Keith said before the shotgun went off — before Westerlund put matters into perspective and made you forget about the llamas.

CHRIS IT GOODBYE

Lost in the shuffle of spellbinding playoff games — and a bonehead decision by Baltimore Orioles manager Buck Showalter about which relief pitcher to use — was that Chris Carter tied for the National League lead in home runs this season.

The quiet giant from Sierra Vista High School belted three long ones in his final five games for the Milwaukee Brewers to tie Colorado’s Nolan Arenado for the NL lead in homers with 41.

This is the second consecutive season a Las Vegan has finished in a first-place tie with Arenado atop the swatting heap, as Bryce Harper and Arenado knocked 42 out of the yard in 2015.

The Cubs’ Kris Bryant was two strokes behind Carter and Arenado on the leaderboard with 39. Bryant also drove in 101 runs and scored 121. If he is named the NL’s Most Valuable Player, perhaps Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman will present him with another key to the city, like the ones he and Harper received last year on Fremont Street when they were Rookie of the Year and MVP.

Most baseball people around here have embraced Bryant and Harper, or Harper and Bryant, depending on your order of preference, as Las Vegas’ chief baseball ambassadors. As well they should. But if there’s another whoop-de-do downtown after this year’s trophies are handed out, it would be nice if somebody from the mayor’s office invited Chris Carter, too.

SAME OLD SONG

Just to show that progress is a relative thing, when the UNLV football team appeared to be making some before losing to Idaho, I received an email from Jack Concannon — not the old Eagles and Bears quarterback but the former UNLV center.

This Jack Concannon — “I threw the ball between my legs; I would have loved to have been in ‘Brian’s Song’ but that wasn’t me,” he wrote — is middle school athletic coordinator at The Meadows School. He was among about 15 former Rebels teammates who watched UNLV stub its toe like Sylvester the Cat in the old cartoons.

“We all played in the late 1970s under Ron Meyer and Tony Knap — our big topic (of discussion) was (how) one play in ’79 kept us from 10 wins, and how we would have to be patient,” this Jack Concannon wrote.

The inference: Nine wins in one season wasn’t good enough then, but that getting to 10 would require patience.

Sufferin’ succotash.

BOWLFUL OF POSSIBILITIES

When Tina Kunzer-Murphy was director of the Las Vegas Bowl and Brigham Young still was in the Mountain West and its football heyday, I used to tease her that she must be living right, because the presence of the Cougars practically guaranteed a sellout — or at least 86 percent of one, the figure most used at last week’s ticket sales kickoff luncheon.

Her successor, John Saccenti, must be living right, too, as evidenced by last year’s Holy War Redux pitting BYU against Utah. Full house. Ticket scalpers on Russell Road.

It’s early, but the website SB Nation has predicted Boise State will face Southern California in the Las Vegas Bowl’s silver anniversary game — a matchup that would almost guarantee another sellout, 86 percent or greater, with ticket scalpers on Russell Road.

The fellow at SB Nation who makes bowl game predictions is named Jason Kirk.

John Saccenti must be hoping that he, too, is living right.

FOOTHILL BAND SMELLS THE ROSES

Until last year when we moved to another part of town, the Foothill High Marching Band served as my alarm clock.

On many mornings, I would be awakened from a deep slumber by the sound of trombones and instruments of mass percussion.

Was I upset? Perhaps the first time. But then I would (sort of) look forward to it — the Foothill High Marching Band sounded that good during early morning practice.

The Falcons band, which has a whopping 350 members — I was surprised to learn not all play the trombone or weapons of mass percussion — has performed at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Now it is headed for the Tournament of Roses Parade. Which also is a big deal. A businessman named Robert Ellis has donated an instrument trailer and $10,000; the band still needs to raise additional funds before Pasadena.

But there’s still time to help out the trombone players and the other members of the marching band. To find out how, click on FHSbands.com or falconbandboosters.org.

Here are some highlights from the Foothill Marching Band's Tournament of Roses Application along with footage of... https://t.co/XxUiGJSFAU

— Foothill HS Band (@FoothillHSBand) May 10, 2016

Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.