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Elizabeth Merrill, ESPN senior editor
Jack Hoffman, the young Nebraska football fan who ran for a touchdown in the Cornhuskers’ 2013 spring game and became a catalyst for fundraising for pediatric brain cancer, died Wednesday after a 14-year fight against cancer, according to the Team Jack Foundation. He was 19 years old.
Hoffman was diagnosed with a cancerous glioma when he was 5 years old. Doctors told the family that most of his golf ball-sized tumor could not be removed. But his father, Andy Hoffman, did exhaustive research and found a doctor in Boston who removed more than 90 percent of the tumor.
Jack’s favorite player was Nebraska running back Rex Burkhead, and before the surgery, Andy contacted Nebraska in hopes that his son could meet him. Burkhead had lunch with Hoffman and faced him on the field, and the family formed a lasting friendship with the former NFL fullback.
In late 2011, when the Cornhuskers trailed Ohio State by three touchdowns, Burkhead excited some of his teammates by mentioning the inspirational boy he had just met. “Hey, Jack wouldn’t give up,” he told them, “so why should we?” Nebraska rallied and Burkhead scored the game-winning touchdown.
A year and a half later, in April 2013, Nebraska coaches decided to play Jack in a spring game. Wearing an ill-fitting helmet that bounced as he ran, Jack, then 7, ran for a 69-yard touchdown as 60,000 fans roared. The video of the play has been viewed more than 10 million times on YouTube.
Hoffman traveled to Washington to meet with President Barack Obama and won an ESPY award for best sports moment. Known simply as “The Run,” this moment helped Hoffman’s father launch the Team Jack Foundation. The company, launched in the small town of Atkinson, Nebraska — population 1,245 — has raised more than $14 million to aid pediatric brain cancer research.
In 2020, Andy Hoffman was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme, an aggressive brain cancer. He died less than a year later. In ESPN interviews with the family in September 2020, Bri Hoffman, Jack’s mother, said their hope for Jack was to keep the tumor at bay for as long as they could.
“For children and tumors,” she said, “what (doctors) have told us is that if you can stop them from growing until your 20s, most of the time they go away .”
Through clinical trials and despite seizures that could occur at any time, Jack Hoffman was able to do things that seemed unimaginable in 2011. He went to the party and was a lineman for his high school football team in Atkinson. He went tubing, boating, fishing and played tug of war with his dog, Roxy. He cheered on his Nebraska Cornhuskers.
But brain scans in 2023 revealed tumor progression, and he underwent tumor resection surgery in the summer of 2024. Pathology results ultimately revealed that his tumor had progressed to a high-grade glioma, “which is extremely rare,” according to the Team Jack website.
After receiving 30 radiation treatments, Hoffman began his junior year at the University of Nebraska at Kearney in the pre-law program last fall. He wanted to become a lawyer, like his father.
In a statement Wednesday, the university called Hoffman “a valued member of our Loper community” and noted that he earned a spot on the dean’s list last semester.
“Jack was widely admired throughout Nebraska and beyond for his courageous spirit and dedication to raising awareness of childhood cancer through the Team Jack Foundation,” the school’s statement said. “We extend our deepest condolences to Jack’s family, friends and all those whose lives he touched. His connection to the UNK community was meaningful and his impact will not be forgotten. We are grateful for the time ‘he shared with us.’
In a CaringBridge article from December, Bri Hoffman said it was “heartbreaking” to email Jack’s teachers to let them know he couldn’t take his exams because he was too sick .
“He worked very hard this semester,” she wrote.
In an interview with ESPN in 2020, Hoffman said he had no idea “The Run” would be such a big deal. He thought it would just happen in front of a few people and got scared when he realized that wasn’t the case. But he put on some old, oversized football pants and his dad took him onto the field. Hoffman wasn’t sure where the touchdown line was, so Andy told him to keep going until he hit the fence.
Hoffman followed this advice when dealing with strangers.
“If you don’t know,” he said, “run until you hit the fence.”
