Missouri Tigers’ Newest Football Recruit, Josh Moore, is a Cancer Survivor
As the sixth-best football recruit in the state of Kansas and the 27th-ranked tight end prospect in the country, it would have been enough of a story that Josh Moore decided to publicly spurn his home state school for their longtime archrivals, the Missouri Tigers:
Beyond the fact that Moore is a daring rebel, however, there’s another really interesting aspect to his life story: he emerged victorious in a childhood battle with cancer. Moore, who will switch to defensive end at Mizzou after being listed as a tight end for the duration of the recruiting process, was diagnosed with cancer when he was eight years old.
More from Missouri Tigers
- Missouri Tigers’ Damarea Crockett named to Maxwell Award watch list
- Missouri Tigers’ Marcell Frazier named to Bednarik Award watch list
- Key takeaways from Missouri Tigers’ first preseason depth chart
- Missouri Tigers’ Tanner Houck selected in first round of 2017 MLB Draft
- Texas transfer Jordan Elliott reportedly commits to Missouri Tigers
As Fox Sports Kansas City’s Sean Keeler detailed in an October 2013 article, Moore had an aggressive tumor on the back of his neck which was found to be malignant:
"“I was pretty terrified, actually,” Moore, a junior tight end/defensive end at Olathe North, says now. Cynthia Moore didn’t know. You never do when the word is cancer, and your little boy weeps when the doctor tells him the lump along back of his neck has a tumor inside, the kind that kills softly, slowly, mercilessly. “It was very scary, because you don’t know what to expect when anybody brings up the ‘C’ word,” Josh’s mother says. “You just don’t know what level you’re at. It’s devastating."
Moore underwent treatment for five years to ensure that the cancer was eliminated. 2015 will mark seven years that the 6-foot-5, 250-pounder has been cancer-free.
Interestingly, the Tiger football staff is familiar with this type of situation. Darnell Green, the brother of former Tiger receiver Dorial Green-Beckham, was offered a scholarship by Mizzou while he was battling leukemia as a high-schooler. The Mizzou staff stuck by him during the battle, though Green decided not to enroll for the 2014 season as he was finishing up his recovery, and he ultimately decided not to pursue a football career and instead to go into modeling.