After coaching boys basketball for 36 seasons at Buffalo High School and teaching math for 41 years, Chuck Elkins has built up a lifetime of friendships and memories.
Unfortunately for Elkins and his family, those memories have begun to slip away bit by bit.
Elkins, who retired from high school coaching in 2016, has frontotemporal dementia (FTD), a neurodegenerative disorder of the brain that occurs when nerve cells in the frontal and temporal lobes are lost, causing the lobes to shrink.
FTD is often misdiagnosed as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease or a psychiatric condition like depression. Actor Bruce Willis was diagnosed with FTD in 2023.
"Memories from the distant past are generally intact until late in the disease," said Debbie Elkins, Chuck's wife. "But it begins to get muddled as he develops or loses more of his brain function.
"Typically, people with FTD don't have memory loss -- from what I was told, it was a loss of 'executive function,' which is a whole list of things, which includes working memory. I thought he had poor short-term memory, asking us things again and again. He doesn't remember what I told him 20 minutes ago or five minutes ago. That time frame has shortened to where now he has no working memory."
That's good news to the couple's dog, Cash, who knew for a long time that Chuck didn't recall taking him out for a walk, and begged to go out again a half-hour later. But the situation prompted Debbie to leave her job as a nurse four years ago in order to care full-time for her husband, who turns 74 in December.
Debbie Elkins has been told someone with FTD has an average life expectancy of seven to 12 years from the onset of symptoms, with her husband at "about year six."
When he retired nine years ago, Chuck Elkins stood third all-time in Kanawha Valley boys basketball coaching victories with 440, and since has dropped to fourth (see chart on page 3B). He also took Buffalo to the Class A state tournament five times.
FTD explained
According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, the cause of FTD is unknown. At this time, no treatments can cure or slow FTD from getting worse. However, a growing number of interventions -- not limited to medication -- can help manage symptoms.
Among a rare group of disorders, it's one of the most common dementias to strike at younger people. However, on average, FTD takes more than 3 1/2 years to get an accurate diagnosis. Chuck Elkins was incorrectly diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2021.
FTD symptoms often start between the ages of 45 and 64, but can also strike young adults and those who are older. It affects men and women equally and there are 60,000 cases in the U.S. alone.
The decline happens slowly at first, with people often appearing physically healthy despite the neurodegeneration that is occurring. The most common symptoms are uncharacteristic personality changes, apathy and unexplained struggles with decision-making, movement, speaking or language comprehension.
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People living with FTD rely on caregivers to help them with daily tasks at first, but as the disease progresses, many family caregivers have no choice but to reduce their work hours or quit their jobs entirely, as their loved ones are unable to safely care for themselves.
Debbie Elkins said she, or family members who come to visit and provide support, have to be vigilant when it comes to her husband's doings. He will neglect to eat meals or shower, thinking he's already done so, or will dress in a flannel shirt on a hot summer day.
"He knows there is something wrong with his brain," Debbie Elkins said. "He has said his brain is broken or he's crazy. 'No, honey, you're not. You have a brain disease.'"
For his part, Chuck Elkins is not hesitant to talk about his FTD diagnosis.
"I don't even think about it, really," he said. "It's not something that really comes up much. I haven't had any real bad effects from it. You hear horror stories from people that have stories of getting lost.
"I haven't had -- and you might ask Debbie more than I know -- I haven't had much memory loss or anything like that."
Vagaries of FTD
People who haven't seen Chuck Elkins in a while might not realize his condition. He can carry on a conversation well enough, still sports a deadpan sense of humor and recalls things from the distant past extremely well.
Debbie said her husband can talk freely and accurately about a student or player he had 30 or 40 years ago or pull up random, "Jeopardy!"-like facts -- such as what he knows about the island country of Madagascar, which he's never visited.
One of his three married daughters, Emma Rexroad, said her father "keeps us Googling. He says something and we're like, 'That can't be true,' and we Google it and -- hey! -- he is spot-on."
Debbie, his wife of 41 years, admits to being amazed by the amount of minutiae her husband retains.
"You can drop any factoid about something," she said. "Anything -- even if it doesn't have to do with sports. His intelligence level remains wholly intact.
"What FTD has taken from him, it hasn't taken that. And so there's not anything he can't do as far as brain function is concerned, like holding an intelligent conversation, which blows my mind. And then he can't remember that he's had a meal or took his medications, or took a shower."
Chuck Elkins still likes to attend Buffalo basketball games and was on hand at the Charleston Coliseum & Convention Center in March when the Bison competed in the Class AA state tournament. That was Buffalo's first appearance at the big show since he led the Bison there as a coach in 2013.
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When asked at that time how many Buffalo games he'd seen prior to the state tournament, Elkins said three -- two home games and one at Wahama. Actually, son-in-law Ryan Rexroad and longtime friend Mike Joseph combined to take him to seven games, and the Bison did not play Wahama this season.
More recently, Chuck Elkins said one of his biggest regrets in all his years of coaching was that "I never got anybody to the next level; I never had a college player."
Several of Elkins' former players actually competed in college, including current Buffalo coach Adam Scott, who played at Alderson-Broaddus.
Then again, Chuck Elkins accurately recounted an endearing moment near the conclusion of the Bison's 2007 first-round state tournament game against 25-0 Gilbert, a 66-44 loss.
The Lions put a seldom-used special-needs student into the game, and his appearance on the floor brought a huge cheer from the Gilbert fans. Elkins recognized the situation and instructed Buffalo to allow that player to shoot. After a few attempts, he sank a basket just before the game ended, drawing a raucous response.
"We let him score," Elkins said recently. "You get to that point where you're that far down, and you know you're not going to catch up, you might as well do that."
David Hannah, father-in-law of another of the Elkins' daughters, Megan Hannah, marvels at Chuck Elkins' long-term memory, specifically basketball strategy.
One of the two families' shared grandsons, 11-year-old Parker Hannah, plays for the Bucks team in Upward Basketball, a church league in Putnam County.
David Hannah, who serves as the team's coach, initially wanted Chuck Elkins to coach alongside him, but that wasn't possible. So instead, David Hannah came to Elkins to take some plays back to the team.
"I went to him a couple times," David Hannah said, "to try and help me design plays. The defensive setup I was doing was wrong and he helped me immensely. It's amazing how well he remembers those type of things -- either offensive or defensive setups, or basketball in its entirety.
"But then, we were talking at the state tournament and he asked me something about the Civic Center and probably 30 seconds later, asked me the same thing. ... His memory on older things is just still amazing; he doesn't remember [current] things.
"I find it amazing that he still recollects. If you didn't know what he had, you probably wouldn't know."
In addition, Debbie Elkins said her husband has become an expert confabulator -- a person who engages in conversation and fills gaps in memory with fabricated experiences that are fully believed to be true.
"He may tell a story with 100[%] truths or 80/20 or 30/70," she said, "and tell it so well that no one knows -- unless they know.
"He tells many people he went fishing yesterday. Or last weekend. It's been more than a year. He wants to be in a trout stream, so he is."
Debbie Elkins said it's a sign of anosognosia -- a condition that prevents people from recognizing or acknowledging their mental health or neurological deficits.
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"Correcting him doesn't help," Debbie said, "because when somebody has a brain disease like FTD, you can't correct them and expect them to hold onto that. The best thing you can do is meet him where he is. Let him believe what he wants to believe."
Early signs of FTD
Debbie Elkins said the family first noticed indications that something might be amiss in 2017.
Just a few months after Chuck Elkins had stepped down as Buffalo's coach, he agreed to assist Scott, his successor, for the 2016-17 season. Then an unforeseen opportunity arose in the middle of the season.
His alma mater, West Virginia Wesleyan, changed men's basketball coaches suddenly, leaving a largely inexperienced Jack Meriwether being promoted from assistant to head coach. Randy Tenney, the Wesleyan athletic director, asked his old pal Elkins to come on board and offer some knowledge and experience to Meriwether to finish out the season.
Chuck Elkins initially didn't want to leave Scott and Buffalo hanging, but eventually did join Wesleyan as an assistant coach.
Debbie said "he lived his best life as a college coach, living on campus and they gave him an old [resident assistant] room in the dorm. ... He was able to mentor the guys and, really, it was pretty amazing."
It went so well that Elkins was asked to come back the following season (2017-18) in the same capacity. However, his wife and daughters began to notice behavior changes.
"We kind of watched him during some of those games," Debbie said, "and felt like we could see something's not right. I didn't know if it was because he wasn't the head coach at his high school, but he really stayed back and sort of didn't participate the way we would have expected him to. About that time, we started asking questions about what's happening."
Emma mentioned a family bicycling trip around that time on the Greenbrier River Trail, in which Chuck was supposed to pick them up at a designated spot, but had problems recalling directions for an area in which he was quite familiar.
As the months went by, the concerns kept increasing.
His family tried to find some answers, but he was wrongly diagnosed on more than one occasion, including a diagnosis of Alzheimer's in 2021. That's the day Debbie walked away from her nursing career at age 59.
However, a trip to Ohio State University to get Alzheimer's drugs that were newly available included a spinal tap that showed Chuck Elkins didn't have the protein that would have led to an Alzheimer's diagnosis.
Once they finally received the proper diagnosis of FTD, the wheels started turning about how the family could best care for Chuck and protect him. Included in that was planning a move from their Winfield home, which was accomplished at the beginning of May this year when they settled into a one-story house in Hurricane.
"It had everything to do [with him]," Debbie said of the move. "This could only work if I downsized the house, so I wouldn't have to worry about taking care of the house and him. He had a stroke in November and his cognitive decline is significant since last November, but we were already working toward getting us moved in the year prior.
"His behaviors are different than they used to be, but they aren't difficult behaviors, because there are extremes in behaviors. FTD is often mistaken for a psychiatric disorder, or criminal behavior. If someone with FTD misbehaves in public, they get arrested because they seem otherwise normal."
Elkins' accomplishments
The Elkins family has left a large imprint on the athletic scene in southern West Virginia.
Chuck Elkins was a first-team all-state quarterback for Class A Hamlin in 1970 and played basketball there for his father, Charles Elkins. The elder Elkins coached the Bobcats from 1952-89, taking them to the state tournament three times, with two runner-up finishes. He died in 2014 at age 85.
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Chuck's brother, Bill Elkins, coached basketball at Hamlin and Lincoln County.
Chuck Elkins began coaching basketball at Buffalo in the late 1970s and helped the Bison make history later in his career, leading them to the Class A state tournament four years in a row (2005-08). Prior to that, they hadn't participated in the state tourney since 1961 -- ending a 44-year drought.
"I don't think we surprised anybody," Chuck Elkins said of the 2005 team, "because we had a real good season. We beat some people that we don't normally ever beat."
One of Buffalo's best seasons under Elkins came in 2013, his final state tournament team, which went 21-5 and finished as runner-up in the Hometown Invitational Tournament title game in Summersville. The Bison fell to St. Marys 63-61 on a last-second shot.
Elkins also oversaw Buffalo's transition from the decidedly old-school, cramped 61-year-old gym known affectionately as "The Barn" to a gleaming, regulation 94-foot court when the new high school building opened in 2012. Buffalo won 64 of 78 games over the last nine seasons on its former tiny floor.
Chuck Elkins was recently asked if he missed his days as a coach and teacher.
"Yes," he said. "I'd do it again right now if they'd let me. I don't think I'd have any problems that would keep me from coaching again, but honestly, I don't want to go back in the classroom. But I never had what you'd call bad kids -- never had any real trouble like that."
Allen Osborne, who coached 40-plus seasons at Poca before recently taking over at St. Albans, has probably squared off more than anyone against Elkins, owing to their Putnam County proximity and their longevity.
"Poca-Buffalo was always a pretty good rivalry," Osborne said. "His teams always played hard and it seemed like they had a couple of good shooters. I remember them and their 2-2-1 press all the time.
"He's a good man and a good coach. My daughter and his daughter were roommates in college one year at Wesleyan. I've always had a lot of respect for Chuck and his family, and always liked him a lot -- a good person.
"I know he always liked to fish and play golf. His dad was a good man, too. A lot of respect for their family. They always had competitive teams down there and always played us tough."
To top off the family's ties with basketball, all three of the Elkins daughters -- twins Megan Elkins Hannah and Lindsay Elkins Rotella, along with younger sister Emma Elkins Rexroad -- were starters for the Buffalo girls team one season.
Volunteering for the cause
Debbie Elkins has joined The Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration (AFTD), the country's leading nonprofit organization dedicated solely for support, education, research, advocacy and improving the quality of life for those affected by FTD.
She was asked to represent West Virginia as an ambassador volunteer leader and recently attended a dementia conference in Denver to help raise FTD awareness.
"I am very passionate about advocating for him," she said of her husband, "and raising awareness for his disease, because so many younger people will go undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. My mission is to raise awareness for this disease and to shine a light.
"They may not help Chuck, but maybe someday they will find a cure or treatment for others that have FTD."
Debbie Elkins said she wanted her husband's story told for his grandchildren, "so they can know a grandpa that they won't be able to see because of FTD."
She realizes the coming months may be difficult, but approaches it with resolve.
"It is for better or worse -- they say, richer or poorer," she said, her voice cracking with emotion, "and we've had all of that. And in all of that, I believe that there's a reason God put Chuck with a 10 1/2-year younger nurse, and why God put Debbie with Chuck.
"So I take that as, it's an honor that I get to take care of him most days."
'Celebration' encouraged
Debbie Elkins urged anyone who remembers her husband to send him a card or note to: Chuck Elkins, P.O. Box 114, Scott Depot, WV 25560.
"He loved being a teacher and coach," she said, "and I really feel like he's made a difference in a lot of lives of students that he worked with, and I hear that frequently when we're out and about running into people.
"So I want those people whose lives he may have touched -- if they have the time or the desire -- to send him a note to tell him ... just to let him know how he made a difference, or that they were thinking of him.
"Because I don't think we celebrate people enough while they're on this earth. We have celebrations of life after death, but coach Elkins isn't dead yet."