If you went to buy a poster of your favorite collegiate athlete odds are Jacob Madonia, a discus and shot-putter for the University of Buffalo’s Track & Field team, would not be anywhere near the top of your list.  He’s never willed his team to greatness like Tim Tebow or Tyler Hansborough, nor has he held up a Heisman Trophy or National Player of the Year award like Sam Bradford or Blake Griffin. And while it is safe to say his athletic career will come and go without much fanfare, his poster is the one I’d want on my wall, hands down.

Madonia’s story is not full of the accolades and publicity like the student athletes frequently displayed on nightly sports highlight shows, yet it’s one worth telling over and over again. Unlike the students we often see only through the eyes of a fan, the story of his transcends the world of sports, portraying a young man whose courageous, off-field battle with cancer challenges us all to cherish life beyond the game.

Anyone who has seen the discus and shot put portion of a track and field competition, whether at the high school, collegiate, or Olympic level, can appreciate the brute strength and focus necessary for an athlete to be successful. Dating back to the 8th century BC, these events were part of the famous pentathlons between rivaling Greek poleis. In a vigorous competition that mainly tested an athlete’s grace, stamina, physicality and athleticism, the discus and shot put portion were always the main attraction because they challenged competitors’s willpower, pure strength and heart. In order to succeed, athletes must have all their joints and muscles working in total unison to achieve a common goal.

While sadly the luster and popularity of these ancient events are no longer as visible in international or collegiate competition, those who compete in them today are still forced to endure the constant pressures and physical stress the unnatural movements place on their bodies. One flawed movement, one twitch, one joint out of place, and failure is nothing short of a reality.

This fear of a broken down body wore on Madonia during his junior year as a member of the Bulls’ Track & Field team. While his love for the somewhat antediluvian events never dwindled, his “lack of success during competition” while preparing for the Mid-American Conference portion of the season worried him. Success as an athlete was all he knew, and it was how he defined himself. As a high school student, he captained the 2005 Rome Academy track team to a state championship, while also being recognized as a member of the All-Central New York and All-League teams for his three individual championships in the cross-sectional and league competitions. ( It’s noteworthy to mention that Madonia’s triumphant career also extended to the gridiron, where he lettered three times and received All-League honors his senior season as the top linebacker.)

Madonia’s accomplishments at Rome Academy led him to the University of Buffalo on a track scholarship, and while it appeared he was thriving as an athlete, the delusional belief that winning was the defining measure of his life, would be put to a test he never saw coming. While his first two years on the Bulls’ team showed signs of promise and potential, Madonia was not fully satisfied. His freshman year he was voted the team’s top newcomer.  He followed that up the next seaons  by placing 3rd in the MAC Championships for the shot put, en route to earning most improved honors for the Bulls’ indoor and outdoor teams.  His junior year, however, was marred early on by pain and frustration. Fearing that a small cyst on his foot could be the difference between a highly successful campaign and a mediocre one, Madonia headed to a university doctor hoping to have a quick, painless procedure to have it removed. What he found out however, changed how he would measure his life forever.

As Madonia calmly put it earlier this month to The Spectrum — the University of Buffalo campus newspaper– “The doctor said I had a baseball-sized tumor in my foot and it had been there for a year and a half.”  The tumor was part of a rare form of cancer called Synovial Sarcoma.  It is a type of soft tissue cancer typically found in males and known  for slowly debilitating the joints without the afflicted even having a clue of the perilous consequences. His life would no longer revolve around winning competitions, striving for greatness and delusional pressures to succeed. Success was no longer a fight to achieve on-field glory, but instead a fight to regain the life he once knew.

Rehabilitation was fraught with pain even a discus or shot put competition couldn’t compete with: three weeks of chemotherapy, two surgeries, eight additional weeks of radiation, and months of lying in a dull hospital room. Normally, a process as grueling and physically draining as the one Madonia faced would cripple the will of even the strongest competitors. But if his bout with cancer taught him anything, it was to fight through the grave obstacles life threw at him. Madonia pushed forward, with a newfound lease on life and a deeper appreciation for the sport he loved. Despite the tremendous toll the recovery process placed on him, Madonia refused to hang up his track uniform for good, and astonishingly attended every practice to cheer on his fellow teammates.  Although he had lost a small part of his foot during surgery, his resiliency and spirit never wavered. As his head coach Perry Jenkins constantly repeats to local reporters, “Jake is a fighter and a believer.”

If this story is already too good to be true, this past January, after close to a two-year absence, there was Madonia dressed in the Bulls’ blue and white uniform back on the track where he belonged. It would be easy to end the inspirational tale there, after all he is now completely cancer-free and once again competing in the sport he fell in love with at such an early age. But Madonia entered his junior season with something with which his opponents could never compete with: a body that had faced the grimmest of impediments and overcome them all. And he used that miraculous spirit and unflappable will to help lead the Bulls to a MAC Championship and a berth in the NCAA Regional scheduled for this October. But the accolade which paid tribute to his fight back to life wasn’t a championship, a newspaper article, or an NCAA Regional berth. Much to his surprise, the often humble Madonia was honored to hear earlier this month that he will be this year’s recipient of the Giant Steps Award, which is handed out each year to a student-athlete who exhibited a rare form of courage, the kind which has the uncanny ability to inspire others to overcome adversity in all facets of life.

I imagine a poster of a 6′3″ discus and shot-putter from Rome, NY, would seem out of place on a wall full of men whose accomplishments on the playing field are well documented and well publicized. He may not be able to dunk a basketball, run 40 yards in 4.5 seconds, or throw a fastball 90 MPH, but Jacob Madonia’s fight with and victory over cancer is about so much more than athletic achievement. His improbable journey through inconceivable suffering need not be characterized by awards or even articles such as this one. While the context of this story suggests that Madonia is an athlete whose will to compete proved the ultimate healing process, the true beauty in this unlikeliest of tales is that he is more than an athlete; he is a young man whose sheer courage reminds all of the obsessed fanatics out there, including myself, that there is more to life than sports. And for that, Jacob Madonia has a place on my wall of fame any day.

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Dave Dulberg is, was, and always will be a die-hard Cardinals fan. He wears so much Cardinal’s paraphernalia he’s often asked if he gets paid for advertising. Dulberg is an undergraduate at the University of Southern California and is currently an intern at ESPN Radio affiliate KTAR 620 in Arizona.

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