The attractive young brunette walked into a sushi bar in Scottsdale, Ariz., and was introduced to the gregarious giant with the Super Bowl ring. Within seconds, she was airborne, literally swept off her feet by James Parrish, a 6-foot-6, 370-pound sultan of spontaneity. And there she dangled, five feet off the ground, showing neither fear nor affront, happily enjoying the view.

Such was the charm of Parrish, then a backup offensive tackle for the Pittsburgh Steelers, a few days before their Super Bowl XXX matchup against the Dallas Cowboys. Eight years ago Parrish, one of the smartest, sweetest and most hilarious men I've met in a locker room, set a standard of rip-roaring revelry during Super Bowl week that may never be matched.

Parrish's suck-the-marrow-out-of-life approach to the ultimate game -- and every other game, for that matter -- still resonates with all of us who were blessed enough to be caught up in it. Last Tuesday night in Houston, during a raging party at the M Bar, my friend and colleague Mark Cannizzaro of the New York Post yelled over the relentless din of the club music, "Hey, since it's Super Bowl week, I can't help but think of your buddy James Parrish. How the hell's he doing?"

Not so good, I answered.

On Wednesday, Cannizaro and I flew to Dallas, where Parrish is spending most of his time flat on his back in a hospital bed, with a tube through his nose, several IV lines in his veins and far more pain than medical science can alleviate. "I'm getting ready to check out," Parrish said shortly after we arrived. He wasn't talking about leaving the hospital.

Parrish has a cancerous tumor that is wrapped around his ribcage and has invaded a whole bunch of other scary places, including his lungs. He has a metal rod where his left femur used to be and spends 80 percent of his time focusing on the pain he feels every time he breathes, and on what can possibly be done to reduce it. He has a wife and two beautiful young children and as much grace and wit as someone in his situation could ever be expected to summon.

He still has his machete-sharp sense of humor. "Hey, try this lollipop," he said, offering me a dose of oral transmucosal fentanyl citrate. "It's Super Bowl week; you know it's all about the buzz."

A football nomad who spent time with 10 NFL teams, Parrish was fortunate enough to experience two Super Bowl weeks -- one a decade ago as a member of the Cowboys, who defeated the Buffalo Bills, and the second two years later with the Steelers, who lost to Dallas. During those eight days in Phoenix in January of 1996, we had big meals and charged into crowded parties and drove a bit too fast and didn't spend a whole lot of time engaged in introspective thought.

It was like that with James: Two nights before the '95 AFC Championship game in Pittsburgh, he led a group of about 10 people into a South Side club called Nick's Fat City. Grunge was the rage then, and about two dozen young, wiry, Kurt Cobain wannabes were slam-dancing as a local band blared onstage. Parrish barreled in and began merrily tossing the stunned rowdies off the dance floor, and within 20 seconds we had it all to ourselves.

Armed with an ironic mantra ("I'm shy") and infectious charisma, Parrish was instantly popular with almost everyone he encountered. He had only one true love -- his future wife, Jennifer, who met him during his Cowboys days and hung in while Parrish bounced around football like few others have. In addition to the Cowboys and Steelers, the 49ers, Chargers, Chiefs, Eagles (for two days), Bears, Jets, Dolphins and Colts all had Parrish on the payroll at some point; he also played in NFL Europe (then known as the World League) for Barcelona and London, and for the CFL's Montreal Allouettes.

Through it all, James had a lump on his left thigh that doctors assumed was the product of calcium deposits. But late in 2002 Parrish, by then a successful Merrill Lynch broker in Dallas, noticed the lump had grown significantly. He had a biopsy, and on Jan. 1, 2003 the doctors called with sobering news: There was a grapefruit-sized tumor in his leg.

"Yeah," Parrish recalled Wednesday while pushing a button to release more morphine into his IV drip. "Happy New Year."

Subsequent surgery and chemotherapy treatments couldn't destroy the tumor, and last summer he learned it had attacked his lungs. One morning in August he stopped breathing and was rushed to the hospital with a collapsed lung, but he surprised doctors by pulling through. After that, he and Jennifer started having the kind of conversations that spouses dread most: How would they face his death, and how would they present the situation to their children, 4-year-old son James Jr. and 2-year-old daughter Jordan?

"Jordan doesn't really understand, but James has a sense of what's going on," Jennifer said on our drive to the hospital. "The other day he asked me, 'Mommy, do you have to be 88 to go to heaven?' I told him no, and I said, 'God may need Daddy up in heaven soon.' He got quiet for a little while and then said, 'Mommy, are you going, too?' I said, 'No, honey. I'm staying here with you.'"

Said James: "We talked about where I want to be buried -- here in Dallas, or in my hometown of Baltimore. I chose Baltimore, because I don't want my kids running over to my headstone all the time to try to be with me. That will be the dead me; it's the soul that lives on, and that's the part of me I want them to cherish."

A media darling to the end, Parrish's mood brightened when he told his wife that a Dallas TV reporter would be visiting his hospital room on Friday. "She did a piece on me over the summer, but it was more fluff, filled with the typical cliches about an athlete facing his greatest struggle," he explained. "This time, she'll do the story I wanted her to do in the first place: An honest look at a family facing death. I want people to know how important certain decisions are, like the life-insurance policy I set up for Jennifer two months before I was diagnosed."

Cannizzaro and I traded jokes and swapped stories with James for a while, but then the pain increased with a vengeance, and we could tell it was time for us to go. Parrish's mother was in a chair near the doorway, and Jennifer was picking up the kids from school. I walked to the head of the bed and put my hand on James' shoulder, doing everything I could not to start bawling.

"Are you scared?" I asked.

"No."

"Are you pissed?"

"No," he said. "Things happen. And there are blessings. Two weeks ago, Jen found a lump in her breast and had a biopsy. It came back negative."

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My eyes began to water, and I became too choked up to talk. James, seizing the moment, as always, took another painful breath and said, "It sucks. But what are you gonna do?"

I kissed my friend on the cheek and told him I loved him, and then Cannizzaro and I hopped in a cab and headed to the airport. Back in Houston, I watched the Kings beat the Rockets from a second-row seat at the Toyota Center, then went to another party and drank lots of Grey Goose vodka and hung out with current and former All-Pros and the beautiful people Parrish used to charm like no other.

It wasn't until late that night that I thought back to the fentanyl lollipop he had offered, and what it might have meant. At the time, I chalked it up to humor, but now I wonder if, on some symbolic level, James was trying to ease my pain.

All these years later and flat on his back, the man can still lift you right off the ground.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Michael Silver sounds off weekly on SI.com.