Brian Custer has become one of the most recognizable faces and voices in boxing as the host of “Showtime Championship Boxing,” conducting press conferences and leading broadcasts for some of the biggest bouts the sport has ever seen.
But constantly on stages full of world-class boxers, the biggest fighter is perhaps Custer himself.
Custer, 52, who also works for ESPN as an anchor on “SportsCenter” and a play-by-play commentator for college football and basketball, recently celebrated the 10th anniversary of his surgery for prostate cancer, which he has since beat.
He’s long made it a personal mission to raise awareness and funds about prostate cancer, becoming one of the most prominent and outspoken individuals to champion the cause.
He’s in his final preparations before hosting Showtime’s pay-per-view for Saturday night’s Canelo Alvaraez-Jermell Charlo undisputed super middleweight bout at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, an unprecedented fight that will mark one of the biggest and highest stakes ever in boxing.
But with September being Prostate Cancer Awareness month, Custer has an even bigger fight on the top of his mind.
“Ten years ago, I didn’t even know anything about prostate and prostate cancer,” Custer told The Post. “A couple of years afterwards, it was still like, ‘Oh, I heard you had it, isn’t that like an old person’s disease?’ And now, they recognize that it’s affecting guys much younger, it’s on their radar now. I don’t know if that was the case 10 years ago. I am very happy about that, playing a very small part in that. … We’ve seen the greatest strides in the last 10 years. I want to take it to another level, though.”
Outside of skin cancer, prostate cancer is the most common type of cancer for men in the United States, according to the American Cancer Society.
The disease disproportionately affects African American men, who are 1.7 times more likely to be diagnosed and 2.1 times more likely to die from the disease, according to Zero Prostate Cancer.
Custer believes there remains a stigma about the disease, the side effects that are commonly associated and the often uncomfortable and invasive tests that are required.
That stigma was palpable when Custer was first told he had prostate cancer.
He was 42 and working at SNY at the time, and he and his wife Carmen’s children were 10, eight and three years old at the time.
Custer’s doctor felt a bump during a routine screening, prompting further tests.
But Custer knows many look past getting tested, with “machismo” taking over for tons of men.
Now, ending that stigma can help save lives.
“When I first got the diagnosis and they told me what it was, I’ll be honest, my first thought was how could I have that, isn’t that stuff that your grandfather gets? What are you talking about? And then when they told me that mine was aggressive, and that I needed to have surgery within a month, I was floored,” Custer said. “I was dumbfounded, and I wanted no one in the world to know what I had.
“When I found out some of the side effects that came with the disease, I was embarrassed that people would think like, ‘Oh my god, this guy is gonna have impotence, this guy is gonna be sterile, this guy might have erectile dysfunction.’ Man, all of the stereotypes, I felt like were on me and I was like ‘there’s no way I’m letting anybody know that I have this.’
“For me, that was really the first thing that hit me. I felt like I had a Scarlet Letter, and I didn’t want anybody to know I was wearing it.”
One conversation changed Custer’s sentiment for the rest of his life.
“My oncologist who did the surgery, I remember him looking me in the eye,” Custer said. “He said: ‘I’m the best at what I do. I’m gonna save your life. I only need one thing from you. I need you, because of who you are, to use your platform, to let men of color know that this is affecting them at twice the rate that it’s affecting white men. And you need to be out there, out front. And I need you to champion this.’ And I looked at him like he had three eyes. I was like, ‘I’m not telling a soul what I got and what’s going on here.’
“And I remember him like, ‘So, you’re saying if I’m gonna save your life, you don’t want to save someone else’s?’ Man, when he told me that, I was like, ‘This is what I’ve got to do.’ That was the main reason I went out and have been such an advocate.”
All of a sudden, Custer’s mindset around the disease shifted from why me to why not me?
It sparked his greatest endeavor, and the identity he now possesses.
More than anything, Custer is a fighter.
“When I had surgery, I had tubes all in me, because they cut you – you get six cuts on your stomach when you have prostate cancer surgery,” Custer said. “I remember that night I was in the hospital room by myself, and that was the night I made the decision, I knew my SNY contract was coming up at the end of the year, I was like, ‘I’m not even gonna re-sign, I’m just gonna sign with Showtime and do boxing.’
“It was also that same night where it was just like, ‘This disease will not take me down.’ That’s why I love the sport so much, it’s really like the theater of life. You’re gonna face some s–t in life. And sometimes you’re gonna get knocked down. Are you gonna just lay down on the mat? Or are you gonna get back up?”
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