Photos by Ryan Coleman, d3photography.com

By Glen Crevier
D3sports.com

Carleton College football coach Tom Journell was attending a camp at Harvard in late June when he received a text message from his starting quarterback, Jack Curtis, asking if they could talk. Journell sensed something wasn’t right. “That’s like getting a message from one of your kids,” he said.

Journell left the field and called Curtis right away. His instincts were correct.

Curtis, about to enter his senior season as a three-year starter, informed his coach of a cancer diagnosis: late stage 2 unfavorable Hodgkin's Lymphoma. The cancer had spread throughout his chest and had begun to grow around his heart. 

He experienced what he said felt like heart attacks on the right side of his chest, randomly, day and night. The diagnosis revealed in Curtis’ words: “A biopsy where they removed an egg-sized cancerous lymph node from the roughly magno-sized tumor in my underarm.”

He began chemotherapy almost immediately.

But during that phone call with his coach, Curtis had another message. “I was shocked by what he told me, obviously,” said Journell. “But within that same sentence when he’s telling me about his illness he said, ‘But don’t worry, Coach, I’m still planning to play.’”

Journell’s response: “How are you going to do that?”

Carleton is 5-2 entering Saturday’s game against MIAC rival Augsburg. 

Curtis has not been able to practice all season while he has undergone chemo treatments at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

He describes a typical week when he has treatment as a 12-hour Monday at Mayo, 7 a.m. until 7 p.m., with a teammate or coach by his side. “I get home exhausted and for the next few days I don’t even leave the house. It’s hard to focus. There are a lot of different side effects. But I try not to let them compile.

“Mainly I try to keep my health up and try to eat. It’s hard to do my reading or anything related to school. Generally I come out of a rut by Thursday or Friday morning.”

And on Saturdays, he keeps his promise to his coach, despite not taking a single snap at practice all week. “Don’t worry, I’m still planning to play.”

A sign of support for Jack Curtis is visible in the background at Carleton's recent game at St. John's. Photo by Ryan Coleman, d3photography.com

Curtis, 6-4 and 205 pounds, is the Knights’ starting quarterback, shattering school passing records week after week.

He passed for 478 yards and six touchdowns against Macalester. He passed for 398 against St. Scholastica, 396 against St. Olaf, and 401 and six TDs against Hamline. 

For the season, he has completed 74 percent of his passes (219-for-294) for 2,447 yards and 22 touchdowns, and he is among the nation’s Division III leaders in most passing categories. 

“He has a big S on his chest,’’ Journell said when asked how a college football quarterback can miss every practice and yet excel on Saturday in a precision-oriented passing offense.

“It’s an amazing story, how he can play at such an elite level.” 

Curtis normally rejoins the team by Friday, cleared to play, and participates in a walk-through of the plays and then meets with his coaches.

“We run through every play on the call sheet,” he said. “The guys do motions and go over protection checks. I meet with our center and ask about what the defensive fronts look like, anything gimmicky that I should expect. Then I meet with the coaches and we compile a week’s worth of film and meetings into a two-hour meeting. It’s a lot of information all at once.”

The Knights run a spread passing offense. “We call it the air raid,” Curtis said. “We spread the wideouts and let our athletes do what they do well in space. It’s designed to get the ball out of my hands quickly and into theirs.’’

Knowing the offense so well has allowed Curtis to feel comfortable with the game plan on Saturdays, despite the lack of on-field preparation.

“To me, quarterback is a mental game. It’s not a physical game. To me, it’s like playing chess. I know my body can make throws and that I can move around in the pocket and feel I’m meshing with what I learned in the meetings and what they want executed on the field. Also, I have a lot of trust in the receivers to get to the right spot at the right time so the anticipatory throws over the middle is a big part of our offense.”

Said Journell: “He’s so smart. He’s been in the offense so long it’s second nature to him. He’s in that mode now that he doesn’t have to think about it. He just does it.”

Even with Curtis’ remarkable achievements this season, contingency is always part of the plan. “We have a Plan B and Plan C and a Plan D,’’ Journell said. “If his bone density scans or platelet counts go down, he won’t be allowed to play. 

“We had a game last week against St. John’s, a top 10 team. I saw him on Thursday and he looked awful. I said, ‘Are you going to be able to play?’ It takes so much out of him. He looked better on Friday and when we got on the bus Saturday he looked all right and ready to go. But we just take it one day at a time. Just like he does.”

The chemo treatments ended last week. While he still faces an uncertain road, he is hoping for a return to full-time classes and a regular football routine, just in time for the final push of the season.

At 5-2 overall and 5-1 in the MIAC, Carleton still harbors title hopes but faces tough challenges against Augsburg, Concordia-Moorhead and especially No. 4 Bethel. 

Off the field, Curtis needs to get up to speed with this semester’s classes, including what he described as his toughest physics class yet, Advanced Classical Mechanics. He expects to graduate next spring with a degree in physics. 

“Of course my dream obviously would be the NFL, but what football player wouldn’t say that,” he said. “But I’ve been blessed just to play college football.

“Professionally, I am fascinated by aviation and aerospace. I’m looking to attend grad school for aerospace engineering and enter the aerospace industry. My senior thesis is on hypersonic jets.”

After each game, Curtis meets with opponents at midfield to offer congratulations and share a few moments.

He said many opposing players relate stories about how cancer has affected them and their families. 

He says his message is simply to keep fighting.

“The thing I've been trying to tell myself is not let my situation define who I am. It would have been really easy to say I have this really hard thing to go through and say ‘I‘m not going to play my senior year, I’m not going to go to school. I’m going to stay home and be by myself.’

“I would have been miserable. Coming up here and fighting through this and still playing even though it’s wrecking my body, fighting to still take my hard courses and do what I want to do professionally has made me a much more accomplished and happier person. Being around my friends and someone still chasing my goals is who I want to be.’’