Jack’s parents, Eric and Karen, will never forget watching their son in the first high school swimming meet of his senior year. Earlier that year, Jack had been diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma, and he was right in the middle of eight rounds of chemotherapy when it came time for the first swim meet of the season.

“Jack’s care team said they’d never heard of anyone continuing to swim through chemotherapy, let alone competitively,” Karen said. But that’s what Jack wanted to do. Karen remembers asking to take a picture of Jack as he walked out the door on the way to the meet that day. She told him no matter what happens in the pool, he’s already won.

“I remember him saying, ‘That’s not how it works, Mom,’” Karen said.

Jack not only won the race that day, but his time qualified him for the state meet. He finished the race so exhausted that his teammates had to help lift him out of the pool. Fans from both teams stood up to clap for him. It’s a moment Karen says she’ll remember forever.

“I stood up and roared,” Karen said. “And then I sat down and sobbed.”

Jack’s high school swimming career was just taking off when his cancer diagnosis threatened to derail everything. He was a top competitor in his state, and several Division I and Division II schools were recruiting him already. He had just returned from a college recruiting weekend in September 2024 when he noticed some lumps in his neck.

“He asked if I could make him a doctor’s appointment, but I told him he’d better go right to a walk-in clinic,” Karen said. The pediatrician sent him to the hospital, where test after test showed inflamed lymph nodes and an unknown mass near Jack’s thymus. Jack was admitted to the oncology floor, where a biopsy revealed that he had Hodgkin lymphoma.

Karen said her family had no experience with cancer, let alone childhood cancer. One of Karen’s former students had cancer, and Karen, a teacher, had tutored that student to help them through high school English. Karen says she remembers just a few days before Jack was diagnosed, that student’s mother had posted a message on social media about how little funding childhood cancer receives.

“I remember being appalled,” Karen said. “After Jack’s diagnosis, that was one of the things that came to my mind – how shockingly little funding goes to childhood cancer research.”

Karen said, at first, Jack wasn’t sure how to handle this daunting new label – being the kid with cancer. He wanted to stand out because of his swimming talents, not his cancer diagnosis. When Jack’s sister, Grace, and her softball team first had “Team Jack” bracelets made so they could show support for Jack, he wasn’t sure about the idea. But Karen remembers taking him to an appointment and seeing a nurse at the hospital wearing bracelets representing other kids or causes. Jack looked at his mom and said, “You got any of those bracelets?”

“I think it helped Jack see that these outward signs of support matter,” she said. “Sometimes, people don’t know what to do, and neither do you. So those silent but visible signs that you’re on that person’s team, that recognition of what you’re going through - those matter.”

Jack decided early on that he was going to follow the advice of his priest who visited him at the hospital and counseled him, “If you have to suffer, suffer well.” To Jack, part of “suffering well” meant not losing his sense of humor. During an ultrasound to check Jack’s heart, Jack waited until the technician had the probe lower on his abdomen before asking, “So, am I having a boy or a girl?” During one particularly harsh round of chemotherapy, a nurse asked Jack if there was anything she could do to make him feel better. Jack said, “Well, my Venmo is always open.”

“He’s a witty kid, and I was glad to see in those moments that he hasn’t lost that,” Karen said. “He’s always had this understanding that we don’t get to choose what happens to us, but we can choose how we respond. He’s shown a strength I’m truly in awe of.”

Jack continued to impress his swimming teammates, his care team, and his family by keeping up his training and winning races in the pool, even though he had to switch from some of his events. Jack had to pivot away from competing in the individual medley, one of his specialties, because his port, a small medical device placed just underneath the skin on his chest so his care team could administer chemo and other drugs, caused him too much pain in the backstroke and butterfly while swimming.

But the port didn’t stop him – between rounds of chemotherapy, Jack kept competing and won the 100-yard breaststroke at the largest invitational in his area, beating around 80 other swimmers from 27 schools and setting the fastest time for the race this season. Recently, he also earned the Kansas State High School Activities Association’s 2024 Spirit of Sport Award, bestowed on one person in the state each year, because of “his relentless pursuit of making a difference for his team and others while battling cancer.”

Jack’s first post-treatment scans in February 2025 showed his body responded to treatment with additional scans scheduled for April. But no matter what the rest of his treatment path looks like, Jack is determined to do two things: keep swimming competitively and continue using his experience to advocate for other kids and teens fighting cancer.

“We want to use Jack’s story to bring more attention, and ultimately, funding, to this issue,” Karen said. “Before it was us, we were appalled at how little money childhood cancer research gets. Now, we’re determined to help change that fact. Jack has lived the awfulness of it, and it’s been a natural progression for him to want to make treatments better and less toxic than what he went through. Kids who go through this deserve to thrive afterward - we want to find out what it’s going to take to make that happen.”

At Jack’s eighth and final round of currently scheduled chemotherapy, he wanted his picture taken. He showed the number 8 and captioned the photo “#beatingcancer.” After taking the photo, he turned to his parents and said, “We did it.” Karen can’t recount the memory without tears.

“I was so proud of him,” she said. “It was a moment that showed us we can get through anything together. And whatever comes ahead… we’ll get through that, too.”