I'm from Nebraska - born and raised my whole life here. Most people here bleed Husker Red on fall football game days; though, the people who remember the five National Championship titles of the past get a little angry sometimes at the Huskers of the present.
But the NU Cornhusker football team did something last weekend during their spring game that is making the nation sit up and take notice. Watch this video, and I dare you not to smile and cry:
Jack Hoffman is a seven-year-old Nebraska boy who is battling brain cancer. Ironically, he was diagnosed on April 22, 2011 - just two years to the day that Joey was - when he was five years old as well.
He has had several surgeries and is still battling. His parents took him to meet his favorite Nebraska football player, Rex Burkhead, and the rest is, as they say, history.
Jack has become the team's mascot, providing inspiration when the deck seems stacked against the Huskers. The Team Jack Foundation has also been started to raise awareness for pediatric brain cancer.
Brain tumor awareness month begins May 1. Wouldn't it be great if people watching this video did more than smile and cry? Wouldn't it be great if they shared it, encouraged people to give, to be aware, to spread the news that children do not need to die from this awful disease?
There's nothing I can do to bring Joey back. And many days, I don't want to be a fighter or crusader for someone else's child.
But it's my duty to be. It's not in my nature to make huge sweeping change. But my fingers have the capacity to spread the word through my writing. To inspire people to care.
To do more than just look at a video and smile and cry.
Visit the Team Jack Foundation here.
Read Jack's Caring Bridge page here.
Visit Cure Search here.
Think about what you can do to help. And then do it.
Do more than just smile and cry.
