He desperately wanted a cure for pediatric brain cancer so that other parents wouldn't have to go through what he and Bri did. Nobody knew that the moment would catch fire, that the YouTube video of the run would generate nearly 9 million views, and that Jack would win an ESPY award and visit President Barack Obama.Īndy Hoffman seized the opportunity to bring Team Jack into the spotlight. The nervous little boy with the wobbly helmet ran for a 69-yard touchdown in front of 60,000 fans while Andy cheered him on from the sideline. He developed a friendship with the Hoffman family, and a year and a half later, Nebraska's coaching staff came up with the idea to put Jack in the April 2013 spring game. "Hey, Jack wouldn't give up," he told them, "so why should we?"īurkhead rallied Nebraska to victory, scoring the winning touchdown. When the Huskers were trailing Ohio State that weekend, Burkhead decided to try to fire up a few of his teammates by mentioning the boy he'd just met. He took them on a tour of Memorial Stadium in Lincoln and called them on the Friday before Jack's surgery to offer support. Andy wasn't expecting to hear back, but Burkhead, now with the New England Patriots, happily obliged to meet them for lunch. The Hoffmans were initially told that most of Jack's golf ball-size tumor could not be removed, but Andy, after exhaustive research, found a doctor in Boston who was able to extract more than 90% of the tumor.īefore Jack's surgery, Andy reached out to Nebraska in the hopes that Jack could meet his favorite player, running back Rex Burkhead. The family's cancer battle began in 2011, when Jack was diagnosed with a cancerous glioma at age 5. He recovered and had no symptoms after about day 5." But an MRI taken shortly after he recovered from COVID-19 revealed that his cancer had spread, and Andy's health rapidly declined. In early February 2021, Andy contracted COVID-19 and, according to Bri's Facebook post, "quickly got a monoclonal antibody fusion and did great. When Andy Hoffman's condition worsened, Jack would come home from school and help take care of his father. He is a lineman, just like his dad was in high school. Jack is 15 now and is part of a clinical trial that has kept his tumor from growing. Andy, an avid Nebraska football fan who put Jack in a Cornhuskers onesie when he was baby, was able to watch his son play his freshman football season at Atkinson West Holt High. They went to cross-country meets and basketball games and on a hunting trip. 'Why is this happening again?' Jack Hoffman's family faces another cancer fight.He had two missions: to raise as much money as he could for Team Jack, and to spend every second he had with Bri, Jack and his daughters, Ava and Reese. Hoffman sought second and third opinions and rallied from two strokes to make it home from the Mayo Clinic early last fall. "Even though Andy's diagnosis was 7 months ago, we are still in denial that this is happening." "This is such a horrible disease," his wife, Bri, wrote in a Facebook post last week. His diagnosis in July 2020 seemed unfathomable, that two people from the same family could have brain cancer that Andy, who ran marathons and worked nonstop, had Glioblastoma multiforme, a rare and very aggressive cancer, with a survival rate of roughly one year. The Team Jack Foundation announced his death.Īndy Hoffman, an attorney, spent the last decade of his life raising more than $8 million for Team Jack, a fundraising juggernaut to end pediatric brain cancer, only to succumb to brain cancer himself. Andy Hoffman, the father of Nebraska Cornhuskers fan and brain cancer patient Jack Hoffman, died Monday at his home in Atkinson, Nebraska.
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