On the afternoon of a Thursday in the year 2016, Shannon Sharpe went to the doctor to have "a routine" screening that will later reveal the NFL Hall of Famers' prostatic cancer diagnosis.

Sharpe, who is 54 years old, is cancer-free and eager for a public appearance in order to bring awareness to prostate cancer.

"Once you hear that 'C' word come out of their mouth, okay, damn," Sharpe recollects. Sharpe was diagnosed a month before his appointment to move to Los Angeles, 

where he had just been offered an interview as a co-host on FS1 with Skip Bayless. "It was difficult..this was my dream job," Sharpe says to PEOPLE.

"I had been wanting this job for so long and I had been given an opportunity that Skip believed in me.

I was going to be a co-host of a daily debate show that we talked about football, basketball, track, and field, golf, tennis, and social issues, I was the first athlete to do what I do full-time."

Sharpe and Bayless 70, who host FS1's daily show "Undisputed" with Skip as well as Shannon which is a show where the experts discuss current events in the globe of sports.

"I didn't want this opportunity to go away because I wanted to show that athletes could do more than talk about their best sports.

I felt that there were a lot of people counting on me to be able to go fulfill this obligation that I had been given."