TUCSON, Arizona — Bill Roemer sits down and mentions a Rodney Atkins song from a few years ago.
"It's funny," said Roemer. "Just I was driving here to do this interview with you, I heard an old country song that was one of my theme songs. It says, 'if you are going through hell, keep on going. You might get out before the devil even knows you're gone'."
Bill Roemer wasn't a country singer, but he did hold a microphone as a Tucson sportscaster, first in the mid-1970s.
"Others will say, 'I remember you doing the Wildcat games in football, basketball, and baseball'."
Roemer was behind the microphone as a public announcer until it was time for retirement.
"It meant more time for walking jogging, playing golf, and walking my dogs," Roemer said. "Wearing sunscreen, but maybe not as much as I should have."
Roemer developed skin cancer, but when the doctors removed the lesion, they noticed two malignant tumors.
"One in my left temple and one that was down into my ear canal right by my right ear drum."
Roemer underwent a five-hour surgery. Doctors had to remove his right ear, and his right eardrum.
"I was self-conscious about it for a long time, but it's God's will," Roemer said.
Following 22 radiation treatments, Roemer is cancer-free. He can again enjoy the sports he successfully called as a broadcaster.
"I follow them very closely," Roemer says of the Tucson teams for which he once sat behind the mic.
Today, Roemer feels lucky the tumors were caught in time.
"If I hadn't had the skin cancer, who knows how long those tumors would have continued to grow."
And any country song now might involve a dog or two.
"I'm feeling okay. I'm sleeping a lot more along with my retired racing greyhounds. We're three old dogs," laughed Roemer.
In 2008, Roemer was induced into the Pima County Sports Hall of Fame for his more-than 30 years serving the Tucson sports community.
