Myles McClarity had just completed his best football season when he got the news no one wants to get: a cancer diagnosis.

Returning from a football game in Montrose, McClarity had a nonstop nosebleed, felt dizzy, couldn’t stop throwing up, and passed out. Doctors diagnosed him in December 2021 with acute lymphoblastic T-cell leukemia, an aggressive type of blood cancer that starts in the bone marrow and can spread to other organs. The diagnosis put his future in sports and his chances of graduating with his class, as patients with that condition have an 85% survival rate.

McClarity couldn’t walk for a month and fought a life-threatening battle with pancreatitis, and he has been in chemotherapy ever since, which included three months of twice-a-week treatments that have since slowed to once a month. Physical therapy has helped him to progress from being bedridden and unable to walk to possibly returning to the gridiron in the fall. He has been in remission for about a year, but will have to continue chemotherapy for another two years.

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“Going through this taught me how to persevere through difficult times and to be able to self-motivate myself to continue to stay strong. Now I am back in school and beginning to relearn things that I lost in the year I was away from school, I can already see how battling cancer is going to help me succeed in life,” McClarity said in his application for The Gazette’s Best and Brightest scholarship. “If I can go through extreme chemotherapy treatments, be at my lowest of lows, and continue to strive to be my best self, I know that I can do anything I set my mind to.”

While McClarity has dreamed of playing professional football and plans to resume playing the game, his battle with cancer has helped him to focus on life after football and drew him to pursue a career in physical therapy or sports medicine. One of his physical therapists had also faced a life-altering illness and while in physical therapy realized she wanted to become a physical therapist to help others who faced similar challenges.

“I had defined my life by football and now that does not define my life. I plan on pursuing a career in physical therapy because physical therapists helped me when I couldn’t even get out of bed or walk,” McClarity said. “I would love to help other athletes rehab after injuries or life-altering illnesses.”

After recovering from cancer, McClarity and his family started a nonprofit called Mission6Strong, in honor of his football uniform number and raised $1,300 to help families in the clinic where he is treated with food and gas cards and goodie bags for kids and teens.

“In the battle for his life against cancer, Myles never wavered in his ability to care more about others than himself. He never gave up and became a hero and someone others looked up to for his positive attitude and willingness to never give up,” Dana Kruse, a Fountain Fort-Carson High School business teacher, said in her letter of recommendation for McClarity. “He is always giving back,” shown by the nonprofit he and his family started.

McClarity will graduate in December, seven months after his class after missing more than a year of high school. He maintained a 3.62 grade-point average and made the honor every semester despite battling cancer. He has been accepted by the University of Northern Colorado.

High School: Fountain-Fort Carson High School

College plans: undecided, accepted to University of Northern Colorado

Parent(s): Faith and Nathan Getty

Other: Honor roll, 2019-2020, 2020-2021 school year and fall 2021 and fall 2022 semesters, varsity football

Myles McClarity