"They're Not Gonna Catch Him!"

The Spring Game was last Saturday.  The Huskers, as usual, have some talent - they won't win the national championship, but they'll have a decent team, I suspect.  Often, one or two relatively unknown player will step up and be the star of the intra-squad scrimmage, and it happened in a big way last weekend!

Jack Hoffman didn't play until late in the game.  On 4th down, he carried for the first - and probably last - time as a Husker.  The result was incredible.  Even if you're not interested in football, check out the video clip.  I suspect you'll be impressed with Jack, as well as the rest of the team.

Jack, by the way, is a 7 year old pediatric brain cancer patient.  He was befriended by former Husker running back Rex Burkhead, and has become close to a number of players on the team, and one of the players came up with the idea to put him in the game.  With this run, he goes into the record books as the leading rusher in the spring game, and his touchdown gave the Red team the win in the annual scrimmage that marks the end of spring practice.  I love the play by play guys calling the play ("He's got another gear!"), and it's quite touching to see all the players gathering around Jack.

One way to look at this is that this game doesn't count - it's just a practice, after all.  As I said before, often players will look like stars in this game, only to fall back into obscurity by fall.  In this case, I think this game does count.  This play may not mean much to football fans across the country, but it meant a lot to one little boy.  Twenty years from now, no one will remember who scored first in this spring game.  I bet we'll all remember who scored last.