BUFFALO, N.Y. — Little did Mike Haynes ever envision football might one day save his life. And now one of the NFL's great defensive backs is on a mission to help save others.

Inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1997, Haynes was attending the annual ceremony in Canton, Ohio, last year when by an off-chance he took part in a free cancer screening offered retired players. The test eventually led to Haynes learning he had prostate cancer.

Now cancer-free, Haynes used that experience to launch a campaign to educate others about the need to have regular screenings — and dispel myths about the disease. And for that, Haynes will be honored by Buffalo's Roswell Park Cancer Institute Saturday, when he'll be presented with the Gilda Radner Courage Award.

"It means an awful lot," Haynes said by phone in reference to the award, which has previously been presented to General Norman Schwarzkopf and journalist Sam Donaldson. "For me, it's just given me more motivation and incentive to be successful at achieving what we're trying to do."

Haynes is referring to Team Haynes, a group of retired athletes and coaches he's assembled to promote cancer awareness with the tagline "Know Your Stats: about prostate cancer." The intention is to raise awareness that prostate cancer is as common as skin cancer in men, and also the most treatable when caught early.

The key is for men over 40 to have their prostate-specific antigen levels measured, because the PSA score is an early detector for prostate cancer.

Haynes knows his number now. The test he took in Canton showed elevated PSA levels, which were not detected months earlier when he was given a clean bill of health following a routine physical.

If not for football and his stellar 14-year NFL career with the Patriots and Raiders, he might have never been in a position to have been screened. The test was conducted through a partnership between the NFL Player Care Foundation and the American Urological Association.

"It's definitely humbling, and it is a little scary," Haynes said. "But I'm glad it happened."

It also was a lesson that others can learn from, especially black men, who have a one-in-three chance to be diagnosed with prostate cancer as compared to one in six among white males.

"I thought I was fine. My doctor said I was fine," he said. "I feel really fortunate, and it's unbelievable how I found about it. Not only did I have cancer, but I had a pretty high volume of cancer in my prostate. I didn't have any symptoms, that's really why I'm out telling my story."

Roswell Park is America's first cancer center, and is honoring Haynes during a benefit dinner in which the institute hopes to raise $350,000 to support cancer research.