July 20, 2020 • 13 mins
Wayne Larrivee sits down with former Packers punter Josh Bidwell.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
For more than one hundred years, the Green Bay Packers
have been a benchmark for football excellence. Thousands of players
have helped pave the way, and we're here to tell
their stories. I'm Wayne Laravi. This is the Packers alumni spotlight.
(00:26):
Getting into the NFL is hard enough on the field,
but few have had to deal with the kind of
off the field adversity that challenged young Josh Bidwell on
his way to the Green Bay Packers. Josh, you said
you came from not an ideal childhood. It was a
tough childhood of broken home is I think you mentioned, Um,
(00:49):
how did that shape you and how did that impact
you as a person, especially to be able to not
only go on athletically but accomplish what you have in
your life? Yeah, that had everything to do with kind
of setting the foundation of where I was going to
go in life. Um, you really have two choices. When
you have bad examples in your life, you can either
(01:10):
succumb to those and as an excuse to fail, or
you can use those as an excuse to do better.
And immediately I I use those as an excuse to
do better. And so my entire childhood I was chasing
something that people said was out of reach success being
a good person, staying away from some of the things
that I saw in my family situation, and that was
(01:31):
a big catalyst in getting me into the right environments. UM,
which I credit the Lord with because he brought the
right people, godly people into my life as I was
navigating through a broken home and tough childhood situation. So
by the time I was at ages where I could
make some pretty strong, personal, committed decisions on what I
was going to do in school, the type of people
(01:52):
I was going to hang out with, and who I
wanted to be UM, those decisions were being made in
a positive way. Big well overcame the tough upbringing to
become a fourth round draft choice by the Packers, but
the roller coaster of a lifetime was only beginning. Just
months after the draft, he received a diagnosis of testicular cancer.
(02:18):
I'll never forget the sequence of events that happened my
first two UM preseason games. That training camp, my first
training camp didn't go all that well. UM, I'm starting
to feel a little bit of pressure in that situation.
We go down to New Orleans and the Dome situation.
Everything went great, had a great game. The next day,
I got a call saying, hey, congratulations, you know, we're
really proud of you. He did a great job yesterday
(02:39):
and uh, we're gonna make you the starting punter for
the team. So that was a Sunday morning. And what
a Sunday morning that was. I got to call on
my family, my close friends, let him know, Hey, I've arrived,
I've made it. I'm gonna be the starter this year. UM.
And then the next two nights just didn't feel all
that well, didn't know what was going on. UM, had
no idea at all about the type of answer that
(03:00):
that was inside of me. And finally, Wednesday night or
Wednesday morning, when I went into the football facility, I
just sat in the locker and I sat there, and
everybody's going to meetings and we didn't have any special
teams meetings that morning, and and I sat there and
I just I just knew that I was supposed to
walk around the corner, go see Dr Gray and and
have him assessed my situation. And it's really it's hard
(03:24):
to describe to to somebody who hasn't gone through something
like this, but in the span of six hours, I
went from being the starting punter for the Green Bay
Packers to having been discovered, diagnosed, and even operated on
and released with testicular cancer. And at twenty three years old,
when two days before your dream came true and two
days later your life's hanging in the balance. I honestly
(03:46):
couldn't describe that, whirlwin. What was the diagnosis? What did
Dr Gray tell you? Um? His initial diagnosis was just
with his eyes, to be perfectly honest with you, he
gave me a quick exam and then he looked at
me and said, we need to get you to the hospital.
And when I went to the hospital, it was an
ultrasound and that takes one minute in fourteen seconds, and
that doctor looked at me and said, yes, sorry, it's
(04:08):
testicular cancer. At that point, they think we don't know
which one it is. There's a good cancer that we
could just remove the tumor you'll be fine in a
couple of weeks when you recover from the surgery, or
there's the other severe cells that are very aggressive and
we won't know until we send that away. So that's
what I was waiting on my my wife now, But
my girlfriend at the time, Bethany, was actually a day
(04:29):
away from going to Costa Rica. She was doing training
for a missionary trip and she was in l A
and got the call and flew overnight, so she landed
in Green Bay when I woke up that next morning.
So we got that call to come in over the
weekend after the pathology report came in. And I'll never
forget we walked into one of the big meeting rooms,
beautiful oak table in front of us with a green
(04:51):
Bay g in it, the entire green Bay brass and
my eurologist is on one side, and there's two chairs
on the other. And that's when Bethany and I sat down.
In my eulogy just just said, Josh, You're done. I mean,
those were his first words. And I'm thinking done, living,
done playing, Like what are you talking about? And he goes,
you had every aggressive cell associated with this cancer in
(05:11):
your tumor and it's most likely spread. Your football days
are over right now, and you talk about an emotional crash.
I sat there, I don't know what to say. I
felt like I was supposed to say something, and I
don't know what to say. And at that point I
knew I had to to leave and and we were
gonna go find the best doctors in Green Bay. Was
going to help us do that. But I'll never forget
(05:32):
walking down the old Player parking lot hallway not saying
a word. I was holding Bethany's hand and I just collapsed.
I mean there was no specific emotion. I just collapsed
and I just started sobbing. No no idea why in
that moment. I can look back now and I can
make some sense of it, But in that moment, she
didn't say anything. She just sat on the ground next
(05:53):
to me and held me and and we just sat
there and cried for about five minutes, and got up
and wiped away our tears and went to the car
and and said, all right, now we need to refocus
on our journey. Okay, And your journey obviously was a
successful one. UM treatment went well because you were kicking
a year later. So from that dark moment too, yeah,
(06:15):
I mean it must Did they catch it in time?
Was that the deal pretty pretty incredible? So yeah, So
I flew back home to Oregon, and thankfully, UM, we
had one of the best doctors for this type of
cancer in Portland, Oregon at Oregon Health Science University. And
so when I went back home that was as close
to home and I was gonna be able to get
so we lived in a hotel up in Portland, Oregon.
(06:36):
I was getting I had a second treatment to removes
from my mid section that also was gonna possibly be
good news. When I came to and they said they
were they were all infected. So the cancer spread. You
have to have chemo now. And I went straight into
chemo before the healing happened, and so the healing was
extended another two or three months from from that process.
(06:58):
And so you know, for me, the worst of it
physically was living it my girlfriend's parents house, having them
carry me downstairs on the couch where I would spend
the whole day carrying me back upstairs any emergencies that
would happen or if I had any issues in the
middle of the night. My my girlfriend was sleeping on
the floor next to my bed for two straight months. UM.
(07:19):
A couple of times I had to be rushed to
the hospital for different issues. This was all the process
that that I was having to go through until finally
UM getting a clean diagnosis M at the beginning of
the year after going through four months of that process.
UM and the doctor saying at this point, it's just checkups,
you know, rehab yourself, get yourself back to health. But
(07:39):
at that point I couldn't walk down a house hallway
without sitting down and resting. So how did you get
back to the NFL so quickly? It was it was
a lot of hard work. Um My trainer that we
had athletic trainer back in the University of Oregon who
had been there for you know, forty years, UM said hey,
let's do this, and so I would get dropped off
of the University of Board and football facility. My first
(08:02):
workouts would last maybe ten minutes. I'd have you know,
one rep of ten with no weights on something, and
I mean it was just exhausting. But the thing that
I found out, and most people will know anybody who's
worked out before you, you gained it back faster than
you gained it in the first place. And I was
pleasantly surprised that as I was going through that process
(08:22):
that things were starting to come back faster. But I
was also very very thankful for Jim Radcliffe, my trainer,
because he didn't want me to go too fast. He says,
you're gonna feel better than you actually are. Trust the process.
Let's just walk through this. And so it really took
about three months for me to get my forty pounds back,
to get myself into an athletic, athletically strong physique, UM,
(08:44):
and then be able to pump the ball effectively. I
did a lot of things to get myself ready for
that point, UM, but it wasn't probably until March that
I was really capable. When you got back to Green Bay,
what was the reaction, what was the feeling you had
to win a job? Right? Yeah, so you know, my
my loyalty to this organization is hard to describe the
(09:06):
fact that they even gave me an opportunity to come back,
didn't waste their time by saying, listen, we're just gonna
get some guys we know don't have an X factor. Um.
They brought me back. They allowed me a chance to
win the job. I was noticeably stronger than the guys
they kept bringing in. But they kept bringing guys in
so somebody wouldn't stack up. They felt like, this is
a waste of time, Let's get somebody else. And so
(09:28):
they did bring some good competition in. UM. But at
that point, I don't think I've ever been more focused
in my entire life on anything than winning that job.
What about your teammates, how do they react when you
got back? Uh? My teammates were phenomenal. Now back to
the original part was I was diagnosed before the league
(09:49):
year began, so I didn't have insurance, so I was
staring at a hundred and twenty thousand dollars of the
privilege of saving my own life. And Uh, Ryan along
While in particular, called me probably about two months into
my chemotherapy treatments, and I remember it like it was yesterday.
I'm laying on the couch with a beanie on my
bald head and I'm emaciated, just sitting there counting the
(10:10):
time go by. And he called and said, Hey, how
are you doing. Is everything okay? And I was giving
him an update on the process. He goes, Hey, I
just want to let you know. I just went around
the locker room and just ask guys if they would
donate to help pay for your medical bills. And I
just raised sixty dollars. A couple of players wrote a
check right on the spot for ten thousand dollars, just
guys that I only knew for three or four months.
(10:31):
So when I got back there, were quite a few
guys who were quite literally invested in my return, and
they were really the majority of everybody else that emotionally
was and so UM, the support that I felt from
the teammates, the support that I felt from the fans,
and of course the organization was something that I was
going to honor. Now you went on to win the
job and had a nice long career in the NFL.
(10:52):
That type of thing. Um, when you did win the job,
and here you get that news again, did you hearken
back to the previous year when I did, Especially the
first moment that h Ryan and I ran out of
the tunnel for our our opening home game. Um. He
and I ran to the to the g and just
(11:13):
kind of stood there and watched and uh, he put
his arm around me and say, can you believe it?
And uh, It's an emotional thing for me to remember.
And then I think I'm probably the only punter that
ever got a standing ovation for his opening punt of
a season. But I'll never forget when when my name
was announced and I ran out on the field, UM,
the noticeable cheer that I was getting. UM, And at
(11:33):
that point I realized, Man, I made it. I can
I can focus on the future now. Josh went on
to punt for twelve seasons in the NFL, and today
he and his wife Bethany lead a beautiful life with
four wonderful children. Bidwell is the team chaplain for the
Oregon Ducks football team, and he also helps run the
(11:55):
Josh Bidwell Foundation, helping young people find their way. I'm
ex jury. As for his time in Green Bay, well,
you can tell how much it meant this community, this team,
shoot the colors coming from the University of Oregon, UM
could not have been a more perfect experience for me.
(12:16):
Um Ron Wolf, Mike Sherman, the entire staff as mentioned before,
the training staff, the strength staff, um the town. I've
I even met somebody, uh two months ago who remembered
my story and who was in middle school raising in
a penny drive to help fund my medical expenses. And
(12:38):
I think you've got to be kidding me. I mean,
what organization would be that devoted to a young man
that they barely knew, and what community would be that
devoted to a young man that they didn't even know.
But nonetheless, that's what the Green Bay Packer experience is
all about. And I'll forever be a Green Bay packer
in my heart.
For more than one hundred years, the Green Bay Packers
have been a benchmark for football excellence. Thousands of players
have helped pave the way, and we're here to tell
their stories. I'm Wayne Laravi. This is the Packers alumni spotlight.
(00:26):
Getting into the NFL is hard enough on the field,
but few have had to deal with the kind of
off the field adversity that challenged young Josh Bidwell on
his way to the Green Bay Packers. Josh, you said
you came from not an ideal childhood. It was a
tough childhood of broken home is I think you mentioned, Um,
(00:49):
how did that shape you and how did that impact
you as a person, especially to be able to not
only go on athletically but accomplish what you have in
your life? Yeah, that had everything to do with kind
of setting the foundation of where I was going to
go in life. Um, you really have two choices. When
you have bad examples in your life, you can either
(01:10):
succumb to those and as an excuse to fail, or
you can use those as an excuse to do better.
And immediately I I use those as an excuse to
do better. And so my entire childhood I was chasing
something that people said was out of reach success being
a good person, staying away from some of the things
that I saw in my family situation, and that was
(01:31):
a big catalyst in getting me into the right environments. UM,
which I credit the Lord with because he brought the
right people, godly people into my life as I was
navigating through a broken home and tough childhood situation. So
by the time I was at ages where I could
make some pretty strong, personal, committed decisions on what I
was going to do in school, the type of people
(01:52):
I was going to hang out with, and who I
wanted to be UM, those decisions were being made in
a positive way. Big well overcame the tough upbringing to
become a fourth round draft choice by the Packers, but
the roller coaster of a lifetime was only beginning. Just
months after the draft, he received a diagnosis of testicular cancer.
(02:18):
I'll never forget the sequence of events that happened my
first two UM preseason games. That training camp, my first
training camp didn't go all that well. UM, I'm starting
to feel a little bit of pressure in that situation.
We go down to New Orleans and the Dome situation.
Everything went great, had a great game. The next day,
I got a call saying, hey, congratulations, you know, we're
really proud of you. He did a great job yesterday
(02:39):
and uh, we're gonna make you the starting punter for
the team. So that was a Sunday morning. And what
a Sunday morning that was. I got to call on
my family, my close friends, let him know, Hey, I've arrived,
I've made it. I'm gonna be the starter this year. UM.
And then the next two nights just didn't feel all
that well, didn't know what was going on. UM, had
no idea at all about the type of answer that
(03:00):
that was inside of me. And finally, Wednesday night or
Wednesday morning, when I went into the football facility, I
just sat in the locker and I sat there, and
everybody's going to meetings and we didn't have any special
teams meetings that morning, and and I sat there and
I just I just knew that I was supposed to
walk around the corner, go see Dr Gray and and
have him assessed my situation. And it's really it's hard
(03:24):
to describe to to somebody who hasn't gone through something
like this, but in the span of six hours, I
went from being the starting punter for the Green Bay
Packers to having been discovered, diagnosed, and even operated on
and released with testicular cancer. And at twenty three years old,
when two days before your dream came true and two
days later your life's hanging in the balance. I honestly
(03:46):
couldn't describe that, whirlwin. What was the diagnosis? What did
Dr Gray tell you? Um? His initial diagnosis was just
with his eyes, to be perfectly honest with you, he
gave me a quick exam and then he looked at
me and said, we need to get you to the hospital.
And when I went to the hospital, it was an
ultrasound and that takes one minute in fourteen seconds, and
that doctor looked at me and said, yes, sorry, it's
(04:08):
testicular cancer. At that point, they think we don't know
which one it is. There's a good cancer that we
could just remove the tumor you'll be fine in a
couple of weeks when you recover from the surgery, or
there's the other severe cells that are very aggressive and
we won't know until we send that away. So that's
what I was waiting on my my wife now, But
my girlfriend at the time, Bethany, was actually a day
(04:29):
away from going to Costa Rica. She was doing training
for a missionary trip and she was in l A
and got the call and flew overnight, so she landed
in Green Bay when I woke up that next morning.
So we got that call to come in over the
weekend after the pathology report came in. And I'll never
forget we walked into one of the big meeting rooms,
beautiful oak table in front of us with a green
(04:51):
Bay g in it, the entire green Bay brass and
my eurologist is on one side, and there's two chairs
on the other. And that's when Bethany and I sat down.
In my eulogy just just said, Josh, You're done. I mean,
those were his first words. And I'm thinking done, living,
done playing, Like what are you talking about? And he goes,
you had every aggressive cell associated with this cancer in
(05:11):
your tumor and it's most likely spread. Your football days
are over right now, and you talk about an emotional crash.
I sat there, I don't know what to say. I
felt like I was supposed to say something, and I
don't know what to say. And at that point I
knew I had to to leave and and we were
gonna go find the best doctors in Green Bay. Was
going to help us do that. But I'll never forget
(05:32):
walking down the old Player parking lot hallway not saying
a word. I was holding Bethany's hand and I just collapsed.
I mean there was no specific emotion. I just collapsed
and I just started sobbing. No no idea why in
that moment. I can look back now and I can
make some sense of it, But in that moment, she
didn't say anything. She just sat on the ground next
(05:53):
to me and held me and and we just sat
there and cried for about five minutes, and got up
and wiped away our tears and went to the car
and and said, all right, now we need to refocus
on our journey. Okay, And your journey obviously was a
successful one. UM treatment went well because you were kicking
a year later. So from that dark moment too, yeah,
(06:15):
I mean it must Did they catch it in time?
Was that the deal pretty pretty incredible? So yeah, So
I flew back home to Oregon, and thankfully, UM, we
had one of the best doctors for this type of
cancer in Portland, Oregon at Oregon Health Science University. And
so when I went back home that was as close
to home and I was gonna be able to get
so we lived in a hotel up in Portland, Oregon.
(06:36):
I was getting I had a second treatment to removes
from my mid section that also was gonna possibly be
good news. When I came to and they said they
were they were all infected. So the cancer spread. You
have to have chemo now. And I went straight into
chemo before the healing happened, and so the healing was
extended another two or three months from from that process.
(06:58):
And so you know, for me, the worst of it
physically was living it my girlfriend's parents house, having them
carry me downstairs on the couch where I would spend
the whole day carrying me back upstairs any emergencies that
would happen or if I had any issues in the
middle of the night. My my girlfriend was sleeping on
the floor next to my bed for two straight months. UM.
(07:19):
A couple of times I had to be rushed to
the hospital for different issues. This was all the process
that that I was having to go through until finally
UM getting a clean diagnosis M at the beginning of
the year after going through four months of that process.
UM and the doctor saying at this point, it's just checkups,
you know, rehab yourself, get yourself back to health. But
(07:39):
at that point I couldn't walk down a house hallway
without sitting down and resting. So how did you get
back to the NFL so quickly? It was it was
a lot of hard work. Um My trainer that we
had athletic trainer back in the University of Oregon who
had been there for you know, forty years, UM said hey,
let's do this, and so I would get dropped off
of the University of Board and football facility. My first
(08:02):
workouts would last maybe ten minutes. I'd have you know,
one rep of ten with no weights on something, and
I mean it was just exhausting. But the thing that
I found out, and most people will know anybody who's
worked out before you, you gained it back faster than
you gained it in the first place. And I was
pleasantly surprised that as I was going through that process
(08:22):
that things were starting to come back faster. But I
was also very very thankful for Jim Radcliffe, my trainer,
because he didn't want me to go too fast. He says,
you're gonna feel better than you actually are. Trust the process.
Let's just walk through this. And so it really took
about three months for me to get my forty pounds back,
to get myself into an athletic, athletically strong physique, UM,
(08:44):
and then be able to pump the ball effectively. I
did a lot of things to get myself ready for
that point, UM, but it wasn't probably until March that
I was really capable. When you got back to Green Bay,
what was the reaction, what was the feeling you had
to win a job? Right? Yeah, so you know, my
my loyalty to this organization is hard to describe the
(09:06):
fact that they even gave me an opportunity to come back,
didn't waste their time by saying, listen, we're just gonna
get some guys we know don't have an X factor. Um.
They brought me back. They allowed me a chance to
win the job. I was noticeably stronger than the guys
they kept bringing in. But they kept bringing guys in
so somebody wouldn't stack up. They felt like, this is
a waste of time, Let's get somebody else. And so
(09:28):
they did bring some good competition in. UM. But at
that point, I don't think I've ever been more focused
in my entire life on anything than winning that job.
What about your teammates, how do they react when you
got back? Uh? My teammates were phenomenal. Now back to
the original part was I was diagnosed before the league
(09:49):
year began, so I didn't have insurance, so I was
staring at a hundred and twenty thousand dollars of the
privilege of saving my own life. And Uh, Ryan along
While in particular, called me probably about two months into
my chemotherapy treatments, and I remember it like it was yesterday.
I'm laying on the couch with a beanie on my
bald head and I'm emaciated, just sitting there counting the
(10:10):
time go by. And he called and said, Hey, how
are you doing. Is everything okay? And I was giving
him an update on the process. He goes, Hey, I
just want to let you know. I just went around
the locker room and just ask guys if they would
donate to help pay for your medical bills. And I
just raised sixty dollars. A couple of players wrote a
check right on the spot for ten thousand dollars, just
guys that I only knew for three or four months.
(10:31):
So when I got back there, were quite a few
guys who were quite literally invested in my return, and
they were really the majority of everybody else that emotionally
was and so UM, the support that I felt from
the teammates, the support that I felt from the fans,
and of course the organization was something that I was
going to honor. Now you went on to win the
job and had a nice long career in the NFL.
(10:52):
That type of thing. Um, when you did win the job,
and here you get that news again, did you hearken
back to the previous year when I did, Especially the
first moment that h Ryan and I ran out of
the tunnel for our our opening home game. Um. He
and I ran to the to the g and just
(11:13):
kind of stood there and watched and uh, he put
his arm around me and say, can you believe it?
And uh, It's an emotional thing for me to remember.
And then I think I'm probably the only punter that
ever got a standing ovation for his opening punt of
a season. But I'll never forget when when my name
was announced and I ran out on the field, UM,
the noticeable cheer that I was getting. UM, And at
(11:33):
that point I realized, Man, I made it. I can
I can focus on the future now. Josh went on
to punt for twelve seasons in the NFL, and today
he and his wife Bethany lead a beautiful life with
four wonderful children. Bidwell is the team chaplain for the
Oregon Ducks football team, and he also helps run the
(11:55):
Josh Bidwell Foundation, helping young people find their way. I'm
ex jury. As for his time in Green Bay, well,
you can tell how much it meant this community, this team,
shoot the colors coming from the University of Oregon, UM
could not have been a more perfect experience for me.
(12:16):
Um Ron Wolf, Mike Sherman, the entire staff as mentioned before,
the training staff, the strength staff, um the town. I've
I even met somebody, uh two months ago who remembered
my story and who was in middle school raising in
a penny drive to help fund my medical expenses. And
(12:38):
I think you've got to be kidding me. I mean,
what organization would be that devoted to a young man
that they barely knew, and what community would be that
devoted to a young man that they didn't even know.
But nonetheless, that's what the Green Bay Packer experience is
all about. And I'll forever be a Green Bay packer
in my heart.
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