Jack Hoffman, Who Was Battling A Brain Tumor, Plays In The First School Football Game

Jack Hoffman(left) and his father Andy Hoffman(right)

Jack Hoffman got national attention after his Huskers touchdown run in 2013

Jack Hoffman was diagnosed with brain cancer at age 5. Two years later, he ran for a 69-yard touchdown at Nebraska’s spring game, and the moment took the 7-year-old everywhere, to Los Angeles for an ESPY, to the White House to meet President Barack Obama.

His dad started the Team Jack Foundation, and little old ladies stuffed envelopes for the small-town venture that proliferated into an $8 million fundraising juggernaut for pediatric brain cancer research. (The little old ladies still help out.) In the quiet times when he wasn’t lawyering or running the charity or raising a family, Andy Hoffman would pray. He’d pray that his son, who had undergone two surgeries and 60 straight weeks of chemo, would survive.

And look at him now. It’s around 3 o’clock on the last Friday of September, and Jack emerges from a field, lugging his schoolwork and a corncob head from spirit day. At 5-foot-10 and 180 pounds, he’s bigger than most of the boys in his freshman class. He has his mom’s hazel eyes and humility and glances at the ground when he notices he’s being watched. Tonight is homecoming, and Jack has a date. His little sisters are curious, but Jack isn’t saying much, only that she’s a friend and that she asked him to the dance.

Jack continues to receive treatment for a cancerous glioma, a pediatric brain tumor.

“The treatment has just become part of my day and is kind of a habit now and just something I know I need to do daily, so I just do it,” Jack said. “Luckily, the treatment that I’m on doesn’t cause any side effects on my body.”

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