They’d roll out around 4 or 5 a.m. and point the car south onto US Route 52.

Four Mondays.

Four one-hour rides to Rochester, Minnesota.

Three different drivers – a mom, a wide receiver and a football coach.

They each had one mission: Help Jack Curtis fulfill a dream that seemed beyond impossible.

Curtis has Stage 2 Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He is also a college quarterback. Typically, the first circumstance would at least temporarily prevent the second from occurring. In fact, doctors at the renowned Mayo Clinic, where Curtis was treated, told him they knew of no college football player who competed while undergoing treatment. Curtis’ own athletic trainer, who spent 16 years in the NFL, knows his share of athletes who were either treated for cancer in the off season or took time off while they underwent treatment. He knows no one was treated while simultaneously playing.

Because, really, who would even want such a thing? The debilitating rigors of chemotherapy – nausea, vomiting, weakness and dehydration – and the mental drain of combating the disease do not lend themselves to any sport, much less the brutality of football.

A year off, a medical redshirt, is the normal course of action.

This fall, Curtis spent every other Monday from September 8 through October 22 at the Mayo Clinic. He’d meet with his team of doctors and nurses and have his blood drawn to check his platelet levels and bone density. Then he’d sit for hours as the medical poison that is chemotherapy poured into his body through a port in his chest.

Finally, 12 hours after he and his driver of the week had left, they’d turn the car around and head back to Carleton College, where Curtis is a senior. Tuesday morning, they’d double back to Rochester, leaving enough time so that Curtis could take his immunotherapy shot exactly 19 hours after his final chemo infusion the day before.

By Wednesday morning, the magic elixir that kept the chemo side effects at bay had worn off, making it impossible for Curtis to leave his bed. The fog started to clear by Thursday afternoons, enough so that he could plop a lawn chair on the sidelines and watch practice. On Fridays, Curtis usually was stable enough to throw a few passes during a walk through. His offensive coordinator and center ran through the opponents’ tendencies, going over blitz packages and defensive fronts. This served as the entirety of his weekly game prep.

And every single Saturday, from September 6 through last week, Jack Curtis puts on his helmet, slid his shoulder pads over the gauze that covers the port that delivers the chemo and plays college football.

Jack Curtis looks downfield as he evades a tackler during Carleton College's homecoming game this year. Courtesy Zach Spindler-Krage

The Knights’ senior quarterback, a physics major with designs on an aerospace engineering career, has thrown for 2