All-Access with Bruce Arians: Coach is back with team after health scare

SAN DIEGO – Head coach Bruce Arians, now in his fourth year with the Arizona Cardinals, meets the media each day during training camp.

Here, in this space, we’ll highlight many of the key topics and personnel conversations he has with reporters following the morning walk-through, though Wednesday’s press conference was different from any other he has done.

Arians, of course, left Qualcomm Stadium Tuesday night before practice and went to a hospital due to stomach pain. He stayed at the hospital overnight but was back with the team at the hotel Wednesday morning and took some time to chat about his situation.

How are you feeling?

“Much better. A little bout of diverticulitis and I’ll go to practice today and see how it goes. I’m too old not to listen to doctors anymore, so I have a tendency to push it. But we’ll go out today, see how long we stay. It’s nothing serious.”

Can you take us through what happened?

“Just a bunch of stomach pain and doubled over, which is what it does to you. I thought it was a kidney stone at first, but I’ve been diagnosed with diverticuli at my last colonoscopy. Good thing I do those every two years.”

Did the doctors make any recommendations for you going forward?

“Change diet a little bit and basically that’s it. Drink a lot of fluid and change diet. No big deal.”

Did you second guess anything you had eaten the last couple days?

“No, no. I’ve been on a pretty strict diet, anyway. So it was odd that it happened.”

Were you worried that it was something serious?

“I thought it was a kidney stone at first, but I wasn’t sweating or have any kind of chills or fever, so it wasn’t that. They diagnosed it right away.”

Before leaving for this trip you talked about taking the team on the road to face the unexpected, is this part of it?

“Yeah, it’s part of it. I did it on purpose. But I was mad I missed the practice because it was a good one, and obviously we got a lot of good work done. Watch the tape and move on to today.”

Did you watch the tape at the hospital or today?

“Today.”

How are you feeling now?

“Fine. Just fine.”

Carson Palmer joked that they’d have to strap you down to keep you away from practice, was there any of that?

“No. I’m going to listen to the doctor, but I told him I’m going. He can be there with me.”

You’ve learned to delegate responsibilities, do you think that helped in a situation like this?

“Yeah, I think those guys are more than ready to handle the practice. It was all scheduled — I was just going to be an observer, anyway. Yeah, I think that’s helped a bunch.”

Were the pains sudden or was it something that was coming up?

“It kept building and building.”

You spoke in an interview a while back about how you put your life in perspective. Did this throw you back into that mindset?

“No. I knew that was there — it was a possibility after the colonoscopy. No, it’s not like the stress I had at Temple. Nothing like that.”

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