When there are only 20 or so kids in your high school class, you don’t need to be that good to make the basketball team. Such was the case in small-town northern Minnesota at Toivola-Meadowlands High School back in the late 1960s. Larry Schneiderman (No. 53 above) was a center on the hoops squad. Jerry Vitek (No. 51), two years younger and several inches shorter than Schneiderman, was a guard.

“Our coaches weren’t looking for the cream of the crop,” Schneiderman recalls with a chuckle. “They were just looking for the crop.”

“That’s absolutely true,” Vitek agrees, laughing. 

Regardless of individual talent, playing sports together requires a unique trust between teammates, an I-got-your-back-no-matter-what mentality. 

Whether they were the cream, the crop, or somewhere in between, Schneiderman and Vitek sowed the seeds of such a relationship during their days at Toivola-Meadowlands. In the years after high school, their paths diverged as they became adults. Schneiderman went on to marry his high school sweetheart, Sheila, and become the CEO of Schneiderman’s Furniture. Vitek, meanwhile, pursued a career in medicine, becoming a preeminent neurologist at the Cleveland Clinic specializing in movement disorders like Parkinson’s disease. 

In 2010, a cruel coincidence brought the high school friends back together when Schneiderman was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. Nearly five decades after the two shared the basketball court, Schneiderman and Vitek were about to become teammates again. 

“We called Jerry, and we asked him for his advice on what to do next,” Sheila recalls. “And he goes, ‘Boy, this is really ironic. I just accepted a position at the University of Minnesota, and I will be there soon. If you want, I will be your doctor. I would be honored.’” 

Subtle signs 

Selling furniture was in Schneiderman’s blood. His parents ran a small grocery and odds-and-ends store in Meadowlands that included some furniture. As Schneiderman tells it, he sold his first couch when he was just 13 years old. 

Time passed, the business grew, and furniture became the family’s sole focus. After college, Schneiderman and his brother, Russ, took the reins of the company from their father and began running Schneiderman’s Furniture and its retail locations across the state. 

It was a dream career for more than four decades. One thing Schneiderman loved to do, even as CEO, was walk around the store showrooms, admiring the thoughtful furniture displays. 

“I’m retired now, but I still like to wander in the store in Lakeville from time to time just to look at the arrangements,” he says with a salesman’s smile. “It’s beautiful. It amazes me.” 

Schneiderman was perusing furniture pieces when his family started to notice something might be wrong with his health. He, his son Jason, and Jason’s wife, Natalie, were at a furniture market when Natalie noticed that her father-in-law’s left arm wasn’t swinging when he walked. They had also noticed that Schneiderman was shuffling his feet more frequently and that he increasingly had a blank look on his face. 

Schneiderman wasn’t convinced anything was wrong, but Sheila searched the internet for his set of symptoms, anyway. 

“It was all Parkinson’s,” she remembers. 

Schneiderman saw a neurologist who confirmed his family’s suspicions. However, there is no single test to confirm a Parkinson’s diagnosis, so Schneiderman wanted a second opinion. 

That’s when he and Sheila phoned their old friend, Jerry Vitek, MD, PhD. Vitek, who had just become the head of the neurology department at the University of Minnesota Medical School, agreed to meet with the Schneidermans and offer his professional opinion. 

“Larry walks off the elevator and he’s not swinging his left arm at all,” Vitek recalls. “I’ve been seeing patients like this for a long, long time. And I said, ‘Larry, there is no way I’m not going to recognize that you have Parkinson’s disease.’” 

‘The beginning of a different life’ 

After solidifying Schneiderman’s diagnosis, Vitek was ready to team up with his old friend once again, but he wanted to make sure the feeling was mutual. Schneiderman had zero hesitation. 

“Jerry has so much experience in the field, so I felt like I was ahead of the game with him as my doctor,” Schneiderman says. “Plus, I just like him as a person.” 

Schneiderman and Vitek embarked on their new relationship as patient and doctor in 2010. The first thing Vitek wanted his friend to know was that Parkinson’s is not a death sentence. 

“When you get diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, it’s not the end of your life,” says Vitek, who is also an M Health Fairview neurologist. “It’s the beginning of a little different life. There’s a lot of good things around the corner, and there’s reason to have hope.” 

“That was good to hear,” Schneiderman recalls. 

Vitek helped fine-tune his friend’s medication regimen, which has helped keep Schneiderman’s symptoms in check for more than a decade. He also prescribed exercise, which research suggests can drastically improve symptoms for some people with Parkinson’s. 

For Schneiderman, a former three-sport athlete, adding exercise to his routine was a layup. He signed up for thrice-weekly spinning classes and the occasional boxing session, all of which helped increase his mobility and limit the pain associated with his disease. 

But Parkinson’s is unyielding in its progression, so Schneiderman’s symptoms have become more intrusive and harder to manage over time. 

Luckily, Vitek has been by his side every step of the way. There was an instance a few years ago when Schneiderman required emergency surgery while he and Sheila were in Florida. Even from 1,500 miles away, Vitek was there to help. He contacted colleagues in Florida whom he trusted to care for Schneiderman and called Sheila morning and night to check up on his friend. 

“That’s out of the ordinary, that kind of help,” Larry Schneiderman says. “But I don’t think that’s just for us. I think Jerry is that way with all his patients. He just really cares.” 

Returning the assist 

So too does Schneiderman. He cares about Vitek, of course, but also about others affected by Parkinson’s. 

That’s why, in 2016, Schneiderman and his family hosted a fundraising event called Triumph Over Parkinson’s, which raised $175,000 to accelerate Parkinson’s research at the U of M. 

In addition, Schneiderman’s Furniture hosts the Russ Schneiderman Charity Event every summer, with proceeds benefiting both Parkinson’s research and the Ronald McDonald House. All told, Schneiderman’s has donated nearly $500,000 to the U since 2016. 

“That’s become such an important part of what we do,” Schneiderman says. “We want to be able to do good for as many people as we can.” 

Vitek says philanthropic support is crucial in advancing the next wave of Parkinson’s care. From understanding how Parkinson’s impacts brain cells at the most basic level to refining treatments to make them even more effective, the future of care looks bright, Vitek says. 

“As I told Larry when he was first diagnosed, having hope is so important, and that’s true in my world, too,” he says. “Take that hope and carry that with you because just around the corner, we might uncover something that stops this disease in its tracks.” 

Schneiderman still sees Vitek regularly for checkups. The two talk about Schneiderman’s health and symptom management, but they make time to reminisce about their days in Meadowlands and converse about life, faith, and the future, too. 

“That’s what happens,” Vitek says, “when you’re taking care of a friend.”