SportsCenter anchor Jay Harris announces cancer diagnosis, treatment plan

For more than two decades, Jay Harris has been with ESPN and become nationally known as a host of SportsCenter. Now, he’s announced that he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Harris went on Good Morning America to make the announcement. There, he shared his treatment plan and advocated for better awareness of the disease among men.

“I was diagnosed with prostate cancer,” Jay Harris said. “I’m having surgery on Tuesday. I’ll be away from SportsCenter for about a month to recover. Then I’m coming back better than ever.”

Luckily, the prognosis from Harris’ doctors is currently a good one. According to his doctor, the cancer is contained to his prostate. So, as long as that surgery is successful, he should be in relatively good shape to beat the cancer.

“My doctor is quite optimistic,” Harris said. “Per my last scan, nothing has spread. So, once we take out the prostate, hopefully, that will be it. That’s the goal.”

The American Cancer Society reports that 1 in 44 men will die of prostate cancer. However, most men diagnosed do not die from it. That’s largely because cases can be caught early and treated, which is a key reason why Jay Harris wanted to publicly discuss his diagnosis and get the conversation further started.

“Because we don’t talk. I was at a golf trip with some buddies of mine and we were talking about some things that I probably can’t talk about on television right now,” Harris said. “And I mentioned the news to them. I told them what was going on with me, and the conversation from there was fantastic. We talked about doctors’ appointments, and ailments, and family histories, and things that we wouldn’t have had a conversation about because I figured I needed to share because we all need to talk about these things, because we all have them in our families. By not talking about them, we just, I hate to be morbid, but we sentence ourselves to death.”

Jay Harris added that this is a generational issue for his family. His dad also battled prostate cancer, as did several other family members who he was unaware of, simply because it hadn’t been discussed.

“Especially when it comes to things like below the belt. We don’t want to talk about any of that stuff because we’re men and we’re virile and all that stuff. But we are human beings,” Harris said. “And we need to take a cue from the ladies because they go see OBGYNs early. Maybe we need to do something like that too. October is breast cancer awareness month, which is fabulous. I didn’t know that September is prostate cancer awareness month… We need to get the message out. People need to talk about it. It doesn’t need to be a death sentence. For most folks, it is not.”

Jay Harris will undergo his surgery on Tuesday. Hopefully, his planned month off from SportsCenter is the only time he’ll be away during his recovery.