ATKINSON, Neb. – The young boy with cancer whose touchdown run at the Nebraska spring football game was viewed by millions on the Internet is in remission, his father said Monday. Jack Hoffman, now 8, captured the hearts of Nebraska football fans when, with the players' help, he ran 69 yards to score during April's intrasquad game. His scamper was viewed nearly 8.4 million times on YouTube and replayed on national TV. The video also won an ESPY award as the "Best Moment."
Jack's father, Andy Hoffman, said the good news about the brain tumor came after an MRI test. The encouraging news was tempered by warnings from the doctors: More than half of all kids in Jack's situation have relapses.
"We pray like crazy and hope Jack isn't in that segment," Hoffman said. But it's a long journey, he continued, "and the doctors have done a good job of preparing us."
Jack is a second-grader at a school near the family's home in Atkinson, a city of about 1,240 people in north-central Nebraska. The rest of his family will continue to raise money for cancer research through the Team Jack Foundation. "We're not living life in fear," his dad said. "We're busy living."
Elizabeth Smart is out with new book
Minutes after 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart was snatched from her bedroom, a police cruiser drove by along a neighborhood street as she was forced to the ground at knife point. "Move and I will kill you!" her captor hissed. It was one of several fleeting times Smart watched a rescue slip away during her nine-month ordeal, she recounts in "My Story," a 308-page book released by St. Martin's Press on Monday. She writes that she was so terrified of the street preacher who kidnapped her that when she was rescued by police in a Salt Lake City suburb in March 2003, she only reluctantly identified herself. Smart, now 25, is married, living in Park City, and finishing a music degree at Brigham Young University. She created the Elizabeth Smart Foundation to bring awareness to predatory crimes against children.
concert news: Rockers Imagine Dragons, who just played a sold-out gig at Roy Wilkins Auditorium in St. Paul two weeks ago, will play there March 12 on their first arena tour with New Zealand's Naked and the Famous opening. Tickets go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. for $29.50-$49.50. Also, Christian singer Michael W. Smith will return to the X for his sixth show there Dec. 7 with Southern rockers Third Day. Those tickets go on sale Saturday at 10 a.m. for $22-$52.
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