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When Dwyane Wade was the most "scared" he's ever been in his life, there was one person he wanted by his side. The retired Miami Heat legend opened up to Hoda Kotb on the April 23 episode of her about choosing the one family member he was allowed to have with him before he underwent in 2023. "I chose my dad," Wade said.
"He's the guy, for me. He’s always been. It's crazy because I’m a mama’s boy, all those things, but my dad has been there.
" Wade, 43, has previously shared that he traveled to the hospital that day with his wife, , and his father, Dwyane Wade Sr. The NBA Hall of Famer told Hoda that only one of them was permitted to be with him before the procedure to remove 40% of his right kidney after doctors had found a cancerous mass on it. “I just thought about actually who I wanted to see in my most vulnerable state,” Wade said.
“And it was my dad. I wanted my wife to see me when I woke up, I wanted her to be the first person I saw, but in my most vulnerable state, when I was probably as scared as I’ve ever been, I wanted my dad to be there. I was like, 'I need my dad.
'" Dwyane Wade Sr. also had endured a cancer diagnosis of his own, which further bonded the father and son. "My dad shared with me when he was going through prostate cancer, and I think we got closer through that process because I (was) obviously concerned about him, but we started communicating more because this was something that was a part of our genetic genes as men in our family," Wade said.
"And so we started being able to share personal things," he continued. "Like, I would call my dad after I left the hospital, like, 'Yo, I just got a prostate exam, Pops, and the doctor did this,' and he’ll laugh and say, 'Oh yeah, that’s nothing. She just wanted to do this.
' We just got close when his prostate cancer (was being treated)." Wade on March 11 that a crucial reason his cancer was detected in the first place was because he went to see his doctor for a checkup in the wake of his father's prostate cancer diagnosis. It led to further testing in which Wade said his doctors found a 3-centimeter mass on his right kidney that was Stage 1 cancer.
It was removed in December 2023 in a surgery during which Wade was accompanied by his father. Dwyane Wade Sr. has been a constant source of strength for his son from the beginning, which included helping him develop a passion for basketball growing up in Chicago.
"He channeled his love of sport into his son," Wade said. "He channeled it into me, and he took me, like, literally everywhere with him. And so I fell in love with sport.
I fell in love with competition. I fell in love with camaraderie." The elder Wade is a military veteran who also instilled a sense of discipline and responsibility in Dwyane Jr.
at a young age. "My father would get up every day at 5 a.m.
, and I would have to get up every day at 5 a.m. with him because he would make me iron his clothes before he went to work," Wade said.
He said he even drove his father to the train station for work when Wade was only 12 years old. "My dad saw something and he was putting something in me and a lot of responsibilities on me," Wade said. "And so I've been getting up at 5 a.
m. since I was, like, 9 years old." "My dad was an amazing father, and he was there," Wade said later in the podcast.
"He showed up. He instilled things in us. Like I said, he was very militant, so a lot of ways that I am, when I say I’m OCD, a lot of that comes from my dad — make your bed, wash the dishes.
" Scott Stump is a trending reporter and the writer of the daily newsletter This is TODAY (which you should ) that brings the day's news, health tips, parenting stories, recipes and uplifting stories right to your inbox. He has been a regular contributor for TODAY.com since 2011, producing features and news for pop culture, parents, politics, health, style, food and pretty much everything else.
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