MARSHALL, Texas (KLTV) - There is a member of the East Texas Baptist University’s football team who had a most unusual offseason, especially when compared to the rest of his teammates.

“I had torn my MCL, and I was out for a little bit and as soon as my MCL was ready to go, plan was to come back here stronger,” said Connor Gillespie, an offensive lineman for ETBU. “But that December I got diagnosed with a stage three cancer, in my kidney. Opened me up and removed all the guts and put them on a table, dug out all the remainder of the tumor and all the cancer that had spread. Moved it out, scraped it out, removed my lymph nodes. My kidney, my left kidney, and just pulled everything out. Put every organ back in. And sewed me back up. I have this beautiful scar now to remember everything by.”

See Full Page