Throughout his wrestling career, Daniel Childress has refused to accept defeat.
 
That’s not to say he never lost. He did. 
 
But instead of viewing those losses as defeats, he merely treated them as setbacks. Or perhaps more accurately, opportunities to come back stronger than ever for the next time.
 
“There’s no such thing as losing in my mind,” Childress said. “There’s winning and there’s making progress. There’s no losing.”
 
That mentality is serving Childress well in the biggest bout of his life. Two weeks into his senior football season at Nemaha Central, Childress was dealt a setback more devastating that any loss he’d ever suffered on a wrestling mat or football field.
 
In mid-September, Childress was diagnosed with Diffuse Midline Glioma, a type of malignant brain tumor that typically occurs in the midline structures of the brain, such as the brainstem, thalamus and spinal cord. The location and nature of the cancerous tumor often leads to a terminal outlook with surgery to remove it largely deemed unsafe and the only viable treatment radiation and chemotherapy.
 
Yet not only has Childress had surgery to remove the tumor, he’s shown that resolve to win the battle.
 
Eight days after having brain surgery, Childress was back on the football field in Seneca, joining his fellow senior captains as they walked out for the coin flip prior to last Friday’s rivalry game with Sabetha. He wasn’t in pads, obviously unable to play, but his presence was an uplifting inspiration for everyone.
 
Childress is this week’s CapFed® True Blue® Student of the Week.
 

 
“It was amazing,” Nemaha Central senior lineman Hendryx Wahl said of seeing his fellow lineman and best friend in attendance. “To be honest, we couldn’t lose in front of him. It was a lot of motivation.”
 
Nemaha Central held on for a 20-18 win over Sabetha in a battle of ranked Class 2A teams – the biggest test either team had had this season. But the battle on the field was secondary for both to the battle that Childress will be in.
 
“We are rivals but two communities who love each other and support each other,” said Sabetha coach Kaleb Moeller, who presented Childress with a football during the postgame prayer huddle that had “Nemaha Strong” and “Faith-Family-Football” on a side with both team’s logos and “Proverbs 27:17” and “Iron Sharpens Iron” on the other side as well as signatures from all the Bluejays players and coaches. “There are so many relations between the two communities and it’s just, we’re Nemaha Strong and that’s what was on Danny’s ball tonight. That’s what it is in our program, ‘Faith. Family. Football.’ And football’s going to be over and these rivalries will be over, but you always go back on your foundation and that’s faith and family.”
 
Even before his diagnosis and battle with cancer, Childress was the kind of person and student that a community, or communities, could rally around. Thunder football coach Michael Glatczak called the senior “a team dude, an all-around glue guy” and that’s fitting.
 
Coming into the program as a fullback for the Thunder, Glatczak approached Childress after his sophomore season and asked him to make a bit of a sacrifice. Even though there was a need for him in the backfield, there was a greater need on the Thunder offensive line, which had graduated three starters, including All-State Top 11 lineman Holden Bass.
 
Without hesitation, Childress made the move and became a key blocker as Nemaha Central returned to the Class 2A state championship game for the third straight year.
 
When his wrestling career came to an end after a series of leg injuries, Childress stayed involved in the sport by becoming a wrestling official.
 
“Danny’s always been the most positive, congenial person,” Nemaha Central athletic director Kelly Williams said. “He’s that guy that brightens up the school when he’s walking down the hallway. Just so genuine with his interest in everyone’s well-being.”
 
The leg injuries that derailed his wrestling career were almost detrimental in Childress’ diagnosis with his brain tumor. Following Nemaha Central’s season opener this fall, he woke up the next morning with some tingling down his right leg.
 
Childress thought nothing of it, having experienced those symptoms periodically after his leg surgeries. When the right leg went almost completely numb, he went to see his doctor, who prescribed Prednisone to help with inflammation and possible pinched nerve.
 
By the end of the week, he felt back to normal and suited up and played in Nemaha Central’s 42-7 rout of Silver Lake. Childress showed no ill effects the following day and that night he and Wahl hung out and played video games, talking about how much they loved football.
 
But by Sunday night, Childress was anything but fine. While watching the Kansas City Chiefs game against Philadelphia, Childress went to take a shower and began experiencing an intense headache. Within 15 minutes of the onset of the headache, the entire right side of his body had that tingling sensation and was starting to go numb.
 
After making it through the night, Childress went to the emergency room at Nemaha Valley Community Hospital where he had blood work and an MRI done. While the blood work came back normal, the MRI showed a mass on Childress’ brain.
 
That night, Childress was transferred to Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo., for further testing.
 
“Hindsight is 20/20, why didn’t we take him to the emergency room right away,” said Mike Childress, Daniel’s father, who was out of town for work at the time. “But he’d fought some nerve issues and stuff after knee surgeries. So we just had this thought that it wasn’t that serious. And we probably should have taken it more serious, but we just didn’t know.”
 
At Children’s Mercy, Childress had a biopsy performed and eight samples were sent to a lab where it was determined that the tumor was cancerous.
 
“We knew it was bad, but we didn’t know everything,” Daniel said.
 
The news of the diagnosis was devastating enough. But the news about what could be done seemed even worse.
 
“We were told it was inoperable,” said Kathy Childress, Daniel’s mother. “And that nothing could be done but radiation.”
 
Instead of accepting that prognosis, the Childresses – as Daniel put it – “got to work.”
 
“When they told us it was inoperable, we started reaching out to everybody could think of to see if anyone could do the surgery,” Mike said. “We were told that it was very high risk. But our thought process was we wanted to see how many surgeons would recommend the surgery.”
 
In the meantime, Seneca resident Sarah Hiltgen got the family in contact with a connection at St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., and with Dr. Paul Klimo, a consulting physician at St. Jude’s and also the Chief of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Le Bonheur Children’s Center, which is also in Memphis. He agreed to do the surgery and in early October, the Childresses went to Memphis to have the procedure done.
 
On Oct. 2, Childress had surgery to remove the tumor.
 
That night, Glatczak was sitting at home when he received an unexpected text.
 
“(Daniel) messaged me, ‘Coach, are you free?’” Glatczak said. “I said, ‘What?’ And all of a sudden he called me and he’s talking to me. And I said, ‘There’s no way you’re talking just fine.’ He said he was just hurting in the head a little bit, post surgery.”
 
Indeed, Childress was not only awake, but coherent and feeling about as well as could be expected. The surgery was as successful as anyone could have hoped it would be, especially given the high-risk nature of the procedure.
 
“The worst case scenario, 99%,” Mike said of how much of the tumor was removed. “There was one little spot on top of the brain stem that he could not tell if it was tissue that was part of the tumor. But where it was, said not going after that. No way without causing permanent damage.”
 
“We don’t know all the answers yet, but the surgery went as close to 100% as possible,” Daniel said. “I’ve had some slight neurological issues, but for having had major brain surgery 10 days ago, I’m doing extremely well.”
 
Given that the Childresses haven’t even heard back from most of the other doctors they reached out to, they readily attest, “Our prayers were answered.”
 
After having surgery on a Thursday, Daniel was released from the intensive care unit on Saturday and then released from the hospital on Sunday. And once he was released, he knew exactly where he wanted to be.
 
“It’s the biggest game of the year, playing Sabetha,” Childress said. “If there was any way I could be here, I was going to be here.”
 

 
Childress reached out to both Glatczak and Williams about his intentions on returning for the Sabetha game, making both vow to keep his attendance a secret from his teammates and the community. 
 
“I thought about not even telling them and just walking into the lockerroom,” Daniel said. “I know it was hard for them to keep it to themselves.”
 
Even knowing Childress was going to be there didn’t keep Glatczak from becoming emotional.
 
“It was just so cool to see him,” he said. “I was out talking to the Sabetha coaches when he pulled up. I’d told the kids after the Rossville game I was done tearing up for Danny and when I saw him I just lost it. It was so cool to see him walking because when he left here, we didn’t know if we were going to see him again. But he’s a true fighter. Nothing scares him, nothing shakes him. He’s going to fight his butt off.”
 
Needless to say, when Childress walked into the lockerroom prior to leading the Thunder onto the field for warm-ups, his teammates were stunned.
 
“We didn’t even know he was coming,” Wahl said. “He walked into the lockerroom and that was incredible. I’ve never gotten out of my chair so fast.”
 
Childress spent the game on the field, doing his best to stay in a chair that he had positioned on the sideline. But even that was tough.
 
“During the game, he started yelling during timeouts and I’m telling him, ‘Dude just relax and take it easy. You’re going to pass out or fall,’” Glatczak said. “But he’s a team guy and he wants to win. He wants the team to do great.”
 
Following the game – as is tradition for games Sabetha plays in – both teams huddled at midfield. Sabetha senior Will Voos spoke on behalf of the Bluejays about their “Faith. Family. Football.” mantra that the program has embraced for decades. Thunder senior Jayden Seitz then spoke for Nemaha Central, both recognizing Childress’ ability to be there and the fight he was in.
 
Then Daniel spoke to the teams. Or at least did his best.
 
“I’m not a big talker to begin with, but in my opinion there wasn’t a lot of words to say,” he said. “It was hard to speak and the hardest past was just finding the words. I could have gotten them out if I’d found the words. But I think so many people are here for me and I’m going to beat it. And they’re going to beat it with me.”
 

 
Indeed, Childress and his family are not fighting this battle alone. In the weeks leading up to the rivalry game, Nemaha Central and Sabetha engaged in a “Penny War” with the proceeds going to the Childress family. A total of $5,000 was raised and a Sabetha student donated $1,000 of his own money, claiming that Daniel needed it more than he did.
 
“That’s what Sabetha is,” Moeller said. “We’re a town that helps each other, everyone’s there for each other. And we saw that embraced by our kids the last two weeks with the penny drive. We’ve gone through our trials in the past and you never want to go through that as a program. Coach Glatczak is leading them through this adversity with the senior leaders here.”
 
T-shirt and wristband sales at Nemaha Central have raised in the vicinity of $19,000 and another fundraiser is planned for Nov. 2 at Heinen Brothers in Seneca, where there will be a live auction, meal, live music and airplane and helicopter rides.
 
The support received has come well beyond Nemaha County, too. At their Oct. 3 football games, Council Grove, Silver Lake and Oskaloosa all held fundraising events for the Childress family.
 
At Council Grove, proceeds from Pink Out items and tattoos along with donations were sent. At Silver Lake, buckets were passed around and on Tuesday at the volleyball match between the two schools, a donation of $1,600 was made.
 
Oskaloosa’s student body did a $1 hat day fundraiser ahead of the Bears’ game with the Thunder that week and raised over $300 from a total of 174 students. A 50/50 raffle as well as bake sale and meal fundraiser was held at the game and in all, the Oskaloosa community raised around $1,600.
 
Last Friday, Troy and Riverside also collected donations and raised $3,100. This Friday, Holton will be donating the proceeds from its concession stand sales from its game with Hiawatha.

In addition other donations have poured in through the @tacklecancer61 Venmo account that's been set up as well as to a account set up for the Childress Family at Community National Bank in Seneca.
 
“It’s been stellar support from around the area,” Williams said. “It has been absolutely overwhelming. It’s a testament to the character and type of person Danny is. I think there’s people that respect our community and see some of the best in their communities in us as well and feel strongly about contributing in any way possible.”
 
The Childresses agree that overwhelmed is their sentiment as well.
 
“The support has been absolutely overwhelming, more than I could have ever dreamed of,” MIke said. “All the way out in western Kansas where we used to live before we came here. Here, there and everywhere in between. I never in a million years would have expected this much support. It’s amazing just what they’ve done here in Nemaha County. I don’t even have words for it.”
 
“It’s hard to put into words because it’s absurd,” Daniel said. “There’s no words. It’s insane to me. Most of the people I’ve never heard of or met in my life nor will I ever hear of or meet. But they’re raising money for me and my fight. The least I can do is fight as hard as I possibly can to get past this. Hopefully I can repay what everyone’s done for me and pay it on to someone else.”
 
The battle has just begun. Daniel will undergo six weeks of five-day-a-week radiation treatment at St. Jude’s in Memphis, which will begin next week. They’ve also explored some alternative medication and a trial that would go along with the radiation, but haven’t settled on the final plan just yet.
 
“It’s been a whirlwind for sure,” Kathy said. “We’ve had a lot of cries, a lot of ups and downs. We try to stay positive for Daniel just so that he doesn’t get down. We’ve got to keep his spirits up.”
 
To which Mike quickly added, “He’s been keeping our spirits up.”
 
Which is who Williams said Daniel simply is.
 
“If there was a kid that unfortunately had to be dealt this card and could remotely handle it, he’s the guy,” Williams said. “He’s one of those guys that’s probably helped more people deal with it than himself. He’s a special guy.”
 
Indeed, when you talk to Childress, if not for the sizable scar on the side of his head and some very mildly delayed mental cognition, one would never guess he was in a battle at all.
 
“I’ve just been in really good spirits,” he said. “You couldn’t be in any better spirits than what I’ve been in for the past month. I’m always going to be happy. I’m not going to get down on myself.
 
“I don’t think there’s any way I can’t not keep fighting. And just being here tonight and for the next week I get to be home, it’s going to mean a lot to me.”
 
Childress has already done the math for the next time he hopes to be back on the sideline with his teammates. Now the Thunder have to do their part and reach a fourth straight Class 2A state championship game.
 
“He said, ‘Coach if we make it to Thanksgiving I’m going to do everything I can to make it back and be there and put on a helmet,’” Glatczak said. “We’re praying he makes it through successful with his radiation and we’ve got all the faith in the world in him.”
 
And more importantly, Childress has faith in himself.
 
“Whatever comes with it and whatever happens, however long it is, I’m going to be ready for it,” he said of his battle. “I’m going to fight as hard as I possibly can and I’m not going to lose. I refuse to lose.”