Original ABC Wide World of Sports announcer Bill Flemming, also known for broadcasting college football, golf, and Olympic events, died last Friday of prostate cancer. He was 80.

Before sports fans were watching televised football games all weekend long -- and then watching on-going highlights on ESPN -- they were listening to Fleming's Sunday afternoon run-down of the previous day's games. He offered fans a glimpse into matches from other regions, and he traveled all over these same regions if it meant capturing a story. He announced 11 Olympics and more than 600 Wide World of Sports events. He once shuttled from hurling in Ireland to car racing in Santa Monica, California, to a parachuting contest in Bavaria, all in just one month.

Named Norman Flemming on the day he was born in 1926, this man grew up in the Chicago area, moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan as a high school student, and was a member of Ann Arbor High School's state championship football team in 1943. He was also co-captain of the basketball team. He came by athletics naturally. Speech, his eventual college major, was another love. In 1949, he won a campus-wide speech contest and landed the grand prize: a summer job at WUOM, the campus radio station. He worked his way up to sports director. And then his career took off.

Nicole was a fellow member of an online group called Sisters In Survivorship. It is a Yahoo support group for women under 40 that have been diagnosed with breast cancer. I remember speaking to Nik on the phone a few times a few years ago when she needed some support and encouragement. I knew she wasn't doing that well lately and I found out today that she has passed away.

Her obituary reads as follows:

Nicole Norman Wetzel passed away on Wednesday, June 20, 2007 at her home in Mandeville, LA.

Beloved wife of Jason Steven Wetzel and devoted mother of Dominique Claire Wetzel, she is survived by her parents, Dale David and Elmire Begovich Norman; one brother, Kevin David Norman and many nieces, nephews and cousins. She was preceded in death by her grandparents: Dominick and Josephine Begovich, Dennis and Rose Norman.

Age 35 years, a native of Marrero, LA and a resident of Mandeville, LA for 14 years. Nicole was a 1990 graduate of Immaculata High School, she received a degree in Business from UNO before moving to Mandeville where she worked as a Notary and Paralegal.

I have dense breasts. And ever since the surgeon who performed my breast reduction surgery more than 10 years ago told me about the composition of my breast tissue, I have been a bit obsessed with how my breasts feel. Good thing -- because I ended up with breast cancer two years ago as a result of my own at-home monitoring. And now I wonder if my cancer was influenced by the density characterizing the tissue that fills my breasts.

Canadian researchers are reporting in a groundbreaking study that women with dense breasts, like me, are five times more likely to develop breast cancer than whose whose breasts have a lot of fatty tissue. It's long been knows that dense breasts inhibit the effectiveness of X-ray mammograms -- and perhaps delay diagnosis -- but now it's clear that breast density is a risk factor all on its own.