Deep into a recent 40-minute telephone interview with former Sixers president Pat Croce, I raised the subject of death: How did he, as a 66-year-old cancer survivor, regard such a thing?

“It doesn’t bother me,” he said.

Well, of course. He has always been Mr. I-Feel-Great!!! — capital letters, lotsa exclamation points. He has always seemed indestructible, and truth be told maybe even a tiny bit menacing, despite his perpetually sunny demeanor — that a result of his martial-arts background and long-held devotion to fitness. (Think about it: What other pro-sports executive could have kicked the asses of all his players?)

As a result, I didn’t blink when he dissed death. Same for when he followed it up by saying, “If this body sheds, it’s not going to touch me. … There’s no fear. I fear nothing.”

Understand, though, that this is not the same guy who back in the day earned black belts, rode motorcycles and served as workout guru to the stars (Bobby Clarke, Mike Schmidt, Julius Erving, Charles Barkley, et al.). Nor the guy who not only kept Larry Brown and Allen Iverson from strangling each other, but actually spurred them to the NBA Finals. Nor the guy whose admiration for pirates is such that he once went searching for the wreckage of Sir Francis Drake’s ships … and found it. Nor the guy who actually owns a pirate museum in one Florida locale (St. Augustine) and seems to own every bar/restaurant in another (Key West).

He’s coming at things from a whole new angle these days, having only recently completed a spiritual quest that began when he turned 60 and saw him travel the world (Bhutan, Israel, etc.), while leaving the day-to-day operations of his business empire to his son and son-in-law. Now Croce, whose gray beard is approaching ZZ Top lengths, begins each day on his 53-acre spread outside Philadelphia — “Meditation Hill,” he calls it — by practicing mindfulness. He meditates. He journals.

He also tweets out his innermost thoughts. On Saturday morning, for example, he mentioned seeing a bird fly overhead as he was walking his dogs: “It’s the same experience as a thought appearing in the blue sky of my mind. It doesn’t bother me a bit. In fact, no thought has the power to cause me misery.”

He touches on that subject often, as when he mentions a quote often attributed to Buddha: “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”

“Except,” Croce said, allowing himself the smallest of backwards glances during our call, “I did suffer in a way that I was never satisfied.”

He always wanted one more physical-therapy center, back when he ran a string of them. One more victory for the Sixers when he ran the club from 1996 to 2001. One more watering hole in Key West. His wife of over four decades, Diane, was always asking him, What’s next? Why aren’t you satisfied? What are you chasing? What are you afraid of?

“And you realize,” he said, “that there was this hole that could not be filled. I didn’t know the true me.”

Now, it appears, he has found himself. His mind has cracked open, as he likes to put it, and he has found peace.

So death? No biggie. He calls it a “fundamental fear” that everyone has, which in turn leads to everyday discontent.

“We fear all kinds of things,” he said. “And that’s why we resist the present moment. We don’t like what is. We want something else.”

Not him. Not anymore.

“No, I accept totally what’s unfolding before me,” he said. “If I can make a change of it, I will do my best in this realm or form. I honor my incarnation. I will do my best as Pat Croce to make the change for the betterment of the situation, but what is, is.”

And what will be, will be.

“Death means nothing to me — nothing,” he said. “That would just be the body dissolving. It doesn’t matter; my mind already dissolved. What do I care about the body?”

His new-found inner peace was put to the test last October, when a skin-deep growth in his chest was found to be cancerous. T-Cell Lymphoma, specifically.

His reaction?

“OK, what do I do about it?” he recalled. “That was it.”

He will not so much as say he has cancer, only that his body does. As he put it, “It can’t touch the ‘I’ that I am.” 

He underwent surgery in November — or, at least, his body did — leaving him with an incision that required 58 stitches to close. (“My chest looks like it got slashed by a pirate cutlass,” he said.) Fifteen rounds of radiation followed in December. He said he felt a little fatigued, nothing more, and is unbothered by the fact that he has what he described as “a rogue blood value.”

Rather, he has powered forward, partnering with the American Cancer Society to host hour-long Zoom sessions every Wednesday at noon for cancer patients, survivors, caregivers and loved ones as part of an initiative known as HEALED (Health and Energy Through Active Living Every Day). Advice is dispensed about such topics as nutrition and exercise. Support is offered. Stories are shared, none more moving than that of Schmidt, the Phillies Hall of Famer, who in September 2013 was diagnosed with Stage 3 Melanoma, from which he has since recovered.

“I’m a lucky man,” he told Croce during the inaugural HEALED gathering, on May 5.

It also changed Schmidt, who admitted that the major league lifestyle left him with feelings of invincibility. No longer. Now, he said, he appreciates every day “more than (he) used to.”

Croce, who has also raised $1.7 million for the Cancer Society in recent months, hopes to work similar magic on the psyches of those who tune in. He mentioned during our call the “sword of fear” that hangs over the heads of everyone touched by cancer, whether it is a patient or someone in their orbit — how there is always apprehension, always uncertainty.

“So,” he said, “if I can eliminate or at least soften the sharpness of that sort of fear, people can live a healthier, more harmonious healing life.”

Pat Croce still feels great. Greater than ever, actually. And he’s quite certain there’s no reason to fear or fret, no matter what might lie ahead for any of us.