ORLANDO, Fla. — Everyone wears their battles differently. Boone High School football coach Andy Johnson is tackling his head on as he battles stage two Hodgkin's Lymphoma.
- Andy Johnson is finishing his 12 rounds of chemo
- Boone's football team stands with Johnson
- Giving up coaching his not an option for Johnson
- See Braves' football schedule here; first game this Friday night
Johnson has been a staple on the Boone High School sidelines in Orlando for the last six years and he is not going anywhere for his seventh season as the Braves' head coach.
"You know this is what I do, this is my job," Johnson said.
It is a position he has worked hard for his entire life and one he is holding on tightly to as he battles an opponent he is never faced before.
"Yeah I just discovered a lump right here and didn't know what it was," Johnson explained of March's discovery. "You know I obviously made the mistake of googling 'I found a lump in my neck.' Never do that."
Last spring, Johnson was diagnosed with stage two Hodgkin's Lymphoma. After a litany of tests and careful consideration, the 44-year old coach and his family opted to go the chemotherapy route to combat the cancer.
"It's an assault on your body for sure, but I ended up doing it and am not looking back," Johnson explained.
While he has been struggling away from the field, his team is fighting for him on it.
"He's not in this fight alone. He's done so much for so many other people and we want to give back to him anyway we can," interim head coach and offensive coordinator Greg Odierno said.
Odierno has been coaching alongside Johnson for nine seasons.
"I think we all need to step up to show him that we have his back as a family, because this is a family –Boone's a family," senior safety Cole Nibert added.
That family is taking care of practice schedules, dolling out equipment and running operations, while Johnson focuses on finishing his 12 rounds of chemo.
Johnson is reacting well to the treatment. The lumps on his neck and chest are gone and PET scans show he is beating the cancer, but all that progress comes at a cost.
"I don't have the energy to do much, you know? It's really kind of frustrating," Johnson explained. "My hands pretty much feel like they are constantly asleep and my feet pretty much feel like they are at all times in ice water, freezing cold and being poked with pins."
This limits his mobility drastically around practice so he uses a golf cart to get around.
No matter the pain, it does not stop him from showing up. Johnson's doing as much as he can to be with his players.
Stepping away from coaching was never an option.
"I just felt like with what we ask our players to do if I didn't turn around and fight through this and coach through this, a lot of the stuff we've been telling them for my career would have been bull crap," he said.
Johnson is a man who stands by his word, even if right now it hurts to stand.
On September 6, Johnson will finish his 12th round of chemotherapy.