By MICHAEL MAROT, AP Sports Writer

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Chuck Pagano walks into the Colts complex now and looks like his old self.

The graying goatee is back. The salt-and-pepper hair on top of his head is slowly returning. The clothes fit, and the 52-year-old coach is eagerly looking toward his second season in the NFL after staring down the biggest opponent of his life — cancer.

"You never think anything like this is going to happen to you. We all think we're invincible," Pagano told The Associated Press. "You see it a lot, you read about it a lot, but you never think you're going to fall victim to something like this."

Some people might be tempted to label Pagano the unluckiest man in football in 2012. He barely missed reaching the Super Bowl, lost Peyton Manning before he ever coached a game and was diagnosed with leukemia three weeks into his first season as a head coach.

Pagano, however, considers himself the luckiest guy in football.

He realizes now that if Baltimore had beaten New England last January, he would not have been hired by the Colts. Without being in Indianapolis, he never would have had Dr. Larry Cripe on his medical team or seen his old pal, Bruce Arians, presiding over one of the greatest turnarounds in NFL history while Pagano was fighting for his life. He couldn't have started this rebuilding project with Andrew Luck, either.

He's lucky, too, that his persistent wife, Tina, kept pushing him to see a doctor for the unexplained bruises, lucky he had a city and a state full of people rooting as hard for him as they did for his team and lucky Indy's bye week came so early so he could seek medical care.