A 17-year old Tariq Nelson came home from a Christmas party with a headache, and he cracked a joke to his mom as he shut the door.

His mother, usually fond of his jokes, stood there smoking a cigarette, her eyes petrified as they glazed through him.

She didn’t even smirk.

Nelson, a current senior and wide receiver at Buffalo State, wondered why the energy in the room was “off.”

His mother said the doctors called about his bloodwork, which he got because of intense headaches restricting his everyday life.

He had leukemia.

According to St. Jude’s Children Hospital, 3,500 to 4,000 children are diagnosed with leukemia per year.

“I got told I got cancer but like, I’m 17, I had D1 scholarships, that was the last thing I was worried about,” Nelson said.

Some of the schools he visited were the University of Pittsburgh and West Virginia University, both D1 schools in the ACC and Big 12, respectively.

The Brooklyn native wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of his aspirations of playing college football, and because of this he didn’t immediately understand the severity of his illness.

“When they told me I wasn’t gonna be home for a long time, that’s when I was really like,’What’s going on?’,” Nelson said.

His athletic dreams were sidelined as he spent the next two months in a hospital bed, and another year getting chemotherapy.

Nelson dropped from 185-pounds to 110-pounds and needed assistance with everything. Despite this, he took advantage of his newfound free time to establish goals and become mentally stronger than many people his age.

“A lot of people don’t know themselves, and then they go through their whole life trying to understand themself,” Nelson said. “I don’t completely know myself, but I got a better understanding of who I am.”

Some of these goals include becoming the head coach of a football team and giving motivational speeches to younger generations, as well as becoming the best version of himself.

Although the communication major doesn’t think he’s manifested into his ideal self yet, cancer pushed him closer to his pinnacle form.

“I feel like it helped me in a positive light and gave me a different perspective on things,” Nelson said. “It made me think more about the future and how I needed to change certain things I was doing.”

After eight years cancer-free, Nelson’s mindset has shifted for the better and he’s flourished into a different person than who he was before; he works harder and welcomes adversity.

“He’s somebody that’s willing to understand — wake up every day and work as hard as you can and nothing’s gonna be guaranteed to you,” said Tyrone Nichols, the offensive coordinator of Buffalo State’s football team. “More importantly, tomorrow is not guaranteed to anybody. He does a great job, like, pushing that perspective on everybody else. The game of football and the game of life isn’t guaranteed.”

“Every day is a new challenge, like ‘How can I be the best me?’ Because every day you’re gonna go through some problems,” Nelson said. “So, it’s like, ‘How do I deal with this adverse situation?’”

Now, Nelson has his strength back and is part of a mere 2.5% of athletes that play Division III football post-high school — and he’s performing well on the gridiron.

Nelson finished last season with 599 yards and three touchdowns on 40 receptions. He’s only 29 yards shy of accumulating 2,000 career yards and around 30 catches short of the school reception record heading into his final season. He’s also had at least one reception in 25 consecutive games.

“I think this year will probably be the best version of Tariq anybody’s ever seen,” Nichols said.