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LINCOLN — Pinnacle Bank Arena roared. No buzzer beater had been hit, no court had been stormed, in fact no game had been played at all. Yet the arena was the epicenter for what must have felt like an earthquake of cheers and applause.
The reason was a kid from Atkinson named Jack Hoffman, whose story had taken the country by storm. At that moment, he was being lifted into the air by two members of the Nebraska National Guard as he held a torch and lit a silver cauldron that dwarfed him in size.
The flames burned bright enough to illuminate the scar on the side of his head; the result of brain surgery to remove the majority of a tumor.
The crowd knew Jack as a pediatric brain cancer survivor who had been a part of one of the state’s most memorable moments. In 2013, he ran 69 yards for a touchdown in the Huskers’ spring game. Jack also met President Barack Obama and started a foundation that won an ESPY.
Before all of the attention and doctor visits, Jack was just a normal 5-year-old when his parents sat him down and told him that he had cancer.
“When I was five, I literally didn’t understand the severity of it,” he said. “Oh, ho hum, I have something like flu again and it’ll go away in a week or so, I thought, but apparently not. I didn’t fully comprehend what cancer was. I didn’t know how long it would last or all the side effects. I really didn’t know anything about it. And I had no clue what to expect.”
Fast forward, Jack is now a senior at West Holt High School. He played football for most of his high school career just like his uncle and his dad had before him.
“I did the actual physical football for my first three years of high school,” Jack said.
Jack’s high school switched from eight-man football to eleven-man football in that time and even though the team struggled at times he found some success playing tackle. However, recently the high school senior received some concerning news after a routine checkup that his tumor had shown some slight growth for the first time in a long time.
“I hadn’t noticed a ton of difference in my body, but my seizures seem to be a little bit more frequent,” Jack said. “So I just decided to play (it) safe.”
Jack still lives with the effects of having a brain tumor. Although it does not stop him from living his life, it does make certain things more difficult.
“I’m just about as close to normal as it gets when it comes to kids with brain tumors or epileptics,” Jack said. “The only thing that really sets me apart from my classmates is my epilepsy. I have occasional seizures where I black out, my body basically goes on autopilot or I’m sleepwalking. That’s the main thing that sets me apart from my classmates, if not the only thing.”
Due to his seizures, Jack cannot drive. But outside of operating a car, Jack’s life has been about as normal as possible for the last 12 years.
Jack’s family has always been huge Husker fans. Jack’s uncle, Mike Hoffman, was a defensive tackle on the Huskers 1994 and 1995 national title teams.
Nearly 20 years later, in the spring of 2013, Jack graced the same field that his uncle did. Jack also met then-coach Bo Pelini and became lifelong friends with star running back Rex Burkhead that season.
When it came to Jack’s turn to take the field, the mild-mannered, small-town kid initially turned down the once in a lifetime opportunity to score a touchdown in the spring game.
“I was eight and I hated attention, I had already had so much of it.” Jack said. “We’re on the way to spring game and my dad asked me if I wanted to do it, and I was like, Heck, no.” “I don’t want to run in front of 60,000 people. He (Jack’s dad) eventually convinced me, and I decided to do it.”
With the agreement in place for Jack to run, the magnitude of the moment began to weigh heavy on the 8-year-old’s shoulders.
“I grew more and more nervous as the time went on, and then when the time came, I threw on my old Halloween costume, and my dad’s old pants and got really nervous,” Jack said. “Everyone knows I ran the wrong way at first, which was embarrassing, but I mean, they were blocking one way so I figured I should go the other way, then they redirected me. I didn’t really realize how big of a deal it would turn into or it was, and really no one in my family did either.”
The fans knew immediately, however, as before the ball was snapped, the always sold out Memorial Stadium reached a feverous pitch.
“You knew from the moment he stepped on the field it was going to be special, whether he ran for 2 yards or a touchdown,” Lincoln Journal Star writer Amie Just said.
Just was one of the many fans in attendance that day who got to witness the special moment.
“I don’t know anyone who was there that didn’t cry,” Just said. “Or feel some overwhelming sense of emotion.”
A big deal might be an understatement as the aftershocks of Jack’s 69-yard touchdown exploded from a feel-good local story to a national story that captured the hearts of people across the country including then-President Barack Obama.
“That was awesome meeting President Obama, it was breathtaking,” Jack said. “I remember being really confused and just curious about how I went from a football field to the Oval Office. That was all Deb Fischer. Senator Fischer has done a lot.”
These days, Jack is looking ahead to the future as the end of his senior year draws nearer and his future in college rapidly approaches. Jack will be attending Midland University in Fremont after he received a scholarship at the start of high school.
“I got it (the scholarship), I think it was the height of COVID, I think it was either 2019 or 2020. But it’s been amazing to get that from the generosity from someone like Coach Jim Rogers, I was in shock,” Jack said. “Like, are you kidding? Because I mean, Midland is an expensive college, and I would have never thought that would happen. Especially someone like me, I have a lot of friends that are not as lucky as me. Sometimes there’s the feeling of not quite survivor’s guilt, but like, normality guilt, if that makes sense. Just me compared to other kids like me, it’s unbelievable how lucky I’ve gotten, because a lot of kids like me, don’t get to go to college. 10 years ago, if you told me I got to go to college, I wouldn’t have believed you. I didn’t know where my life was headed.”
Community is something that the Hoffman family has leaned on at times throughout their journey and Jack especially is thankful for the people who have been there with him along the way.
One of the toughest times the Hoffman family has encountered is when Jack’s father, Andy Hoffman was diagnosed with a different form of brain cancer in 2020. Andy passed away 7 months later on March 1, 2021.
“He told us that he had a brain tumor, I could not believe it,” said Jack. “I didn’t know how this could happen to the same family twice, but yeah, I was in shock for quite a while.”
Even through the toughest of times, the community in the state has always been there with the Hoffman family.
“Well, community means everything and I would not have gotten this far or had this much hope if it weren’t for the people of my town,” Jack said. “Or heck, just the people of Nebraska the support has been unbelievable, from the Husker program, from everyone that’s a part of Team Jack, to the Team Jack supporters, to just everyone, it actually means a lot.”
Through all the adversity in Jack’s life, he has been able to keep hope thanks to his community and their support. The Cornhusker State Games is a sporting event but, in a way, it is more than that it is the embodiment of the community that is the state of Nebraska.
“What I would say is never lose hope,” Jack said. “Because if I would have lost hope my dad wouldn’t have made it seven months after he was diagnosed, or I wouldn’t be where I am today. Just don’t lose hope and never give up.”
The ESPYs
Jack’s story didn’t stop on Pennsylvania Avenue, however, as Jack’s foundation, “Team Jack,” won an ESPY, one of the most prestigious awards in sports. The award placed Jack at just 8 years old in a room with some of the biggest names in sports such as LeBron James, Serena Williams and Sidney Crosby.
“That night was really amazing,” Jack said. “I felt really out of place because I was the only 8-year-old in the room. Let alone an 8-year-old standing on the stage. I remember the night before, my parents said, ‘Jack, you gotta remember a tiny speech.’ And so they whipped something out for me to memorize and I somehow didn’t choke when I said it on the stage, but I honestly wasn’t expecting it. It’s not just me, it was team Jack that won that ESPY because there are a lot of other stories.”
