SANTA CLARITA -- Mitch McMullen sat in a hospital room in 1987 with his dying brother, Corey, watching the Lakers work their way toward another national championship on television and talking about Corey's life and Mitch's own remarkable basketball career.

Corey, a tall, good-looking athlete who had played basketball at Arizona State University with friend and future Laker Byron Scott, had been ravaged by the effects of leukemia. Facing death at the young age of 24, Corey looked up at his brother with tears in his eyes, saying that all he wanted was to be remembered.

Mitch, along with his brother Kyle, have made sure that Corey's dying wish was honored, establishing the Corey McMullen Leukemia Fund, which is financed mainly from a percentage of all sales from their business, the Newhall Coffee Roasting Co.

"We can't bring Corey back, but we can keep his memory alive so that his life wasn't in vain," Mitch said. "It's the least we could do. I just wish we could honor him more. He meant everything to us."
As a result of his fund-raising efforts, Mitch was named the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Los Angeles' Man of the Year at the organization's annual dinner on Nov. 23. In a telephone interview, he downplayed the honor, saying that others were more deserving of recognition.

"It's a great honor to be involved with a great cause, but I don't deserve a pat on the back. It's the children who are sick in the hospital and the doctors who are fighting the disease who should be honored," Mitch said.

In Corey's memory, the Newhall Coffee Roasting Co. donates a percentage of all sales of its coffees, whether they are sold at retail outlets or at the brothers' coffee house, Java 'N' Jazz, in Valencia. In addition, donations are made from corporate sales programs, and, in a collaboration with Smooth Jazz radio station KTWV "The Wave," the brothers hope to organize a jazz festival for 2003 with all proceeds going to the Corey McMullen Leukemia Fund.

"We're fighting -- we feel like it's a war. It's too late for Corey, but if we can help one family, then that's something," Mitch said.