IHSAA football: Guerin Catholic assistant coach fights rectal cancer

NOBLESVILLE – It was a couple of weeks before Christmas in 2021, when the Thompsons gathered for a family card game of UNO. Max, the middle of Dan and Denise Thompson’s three children, knew something was slightly off.

“It felt like something was different,” Max Thompson said. “It felt like there was something my dad wanted to say.”

Max’s instincts were correct. His father Dan, a former walk-on tight end at Indiana who scored the game-winning touchdown in the 1993 Old Oaken Bucket game to beat Purdue, had always seemed indestructible to Max. But life is fragile. And there was his dad, right in front of him in that moment, telling Max and sisters Mia and Eva he had cancer.

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“It felt like a gut punch,” said Max, a senior at Guerin Catholic. “It didn’t feel real. You think that he has all the time in the world. Then something like that happens. It’s the scary feeling of the unknown.”

Dan Thompson, now 52, said the cancer diagnosis “hit me right the between the eyes.”

“The first thing you think about is your wife and kids,” he said. “You want to be there for them. You want to be there for your daughter’s wedding, your kids’ graduation, your daughter’s first date. A lot of those things went through my mind.”

Thompson had put off a colonoscopy screening after his 50th birthday. By the time he took an at-home Cologuard test, he was almost 51. But even when that test came back positive in November of 2021, Thompson was not necessarily worried.

“I said, ‘OK January, I’ll get in (to the doctor),’” he said. “My wife said, ‘No, you are going right now.’”

The doctor found several polyps and a 5-centimeter mass. They knew it was cancer, but when Thompson told his three children after that UNO game, he was not sure the extent of the cancer. “I went through Christmas not knowing, ‘Is this my last Christmas?’” he said. “Or is it something that was nothing?”

Guerin Catholic coach Tom Dilley, a father of two daughters, has always been a bit leery for having fathers coaching sons on his football staff.

“It can go sideways,” said Dilley, who coached at Bishop Chatard and Lawrence North before coming to Guerin Catholic in 2014. “They have to remember that ‘dad’ may be the most important hat you wear, but you have to take it off. It’s not the most important hat you wear when you walk in (to practice).”

But Dilley watched Dan Thompson coach Max and his peers in the youth program at Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church. That was before Dilley realized Thompson played in college at Indiana. “As I got to know him, I realized he had a pretty extensive background in football,” Dilley said. “But I was really impressed and liked the way he handled those kids in a firm but caring manner. It was a natural fit to see if we could bring him on to our staff.”

Thompson always loved coaching Max in multiple sports. But he assumed it would only be through Max’s eighth-grade year. When Dilley asked him about coming to the Guerin Catholic staff, he was intrigued, but first needed to run it by Max and Denise.

“My wife wasn’t thrilled,” Dan said with a laugh. “But Max was. Life is short. To have extra time with my son and daughter is really special.”

Eva, a freshman, joined the team this year as a student manager. She is busy playing her own sports, basketball and lacrosse, during the winter and spring, but welcomed the chance to be part of the team and have additional time around her dad and older brother.

“I’ve kind of grown up around football with my dad and brother,” Eva said. “Two of the managers came up to me at the football banquet last year and said they would love to have me be a manager and I said I’d love to do it. I get to be spend more time with my dad and brother and see them more often and I love being around the sport.”

Time. There never seems to be enough. When Thompson went to MD Anderson in Houston for his cancer scan, he did not know what exactly he was facing.

The news was not great. Thompson was diagnosed with rectal cancer, which had spread into some soft tissue. “Something they thought was pretty minor,” he said, “turned out to be pretty major.”

Thompson had surgery to remove the mass and underwent five months of chemotherapy. Along the way, he stayed mostly private about his cancer journey, which he took head-on. The old walk-on mentality from 35 years ago served him well.

“As I progressed, I was thankful I was the one that got cancer,” he said. “If it was anybody else — my parents are too old, it could really wipe them out. My wife and kids, no. At that point I was in the best shape of my life. I could handle it. So I was thankful I got it for that reason. Secondly, it does center you. Your relationship to God. You realize what is important, instead of going 100 miles an hour trying to do everything for everyone.”

The doctor took out 43 lymph nodes during Thompson’s surgery. One of them came back positive for cancer. “Normally they take out 12 to 15,” he said. “So if he wasn’t as thorough as he was, I would still have cancer somewhere in my body.”

Recovery was not easy, even for a former athlete in good physical condition. When oldest daughter Mia graduated in the spring of 2022, Dan was not himself. One thing he wishes now, looking back, is that he had been more open about what he was feeling.

“I think the mistake I made was keeping it kind of close,” he said. “I didn’t want anybody to feel sorry for me. I just wanted to handle it and get on with it and do the best I could. But (the kids) needed an outlet and it was hard on them not knowing how serious it was going to be.”

But word did get out about Thompson’s cancer fight. His church asked if they could pray for him during mass, leading to questions like, “I don’t know many Dan Thompsons. Is that you?” He told his co-workers at the Thompson Wealth Management Group and former teammates at Indiana. IU coach Tom Allen said prayers for Thompson at his coaching staff meetings during the season.

“With so much going on for him, to pray for a former player is very humbling,” Thompson said. “There’s a lot of good in this world. Sometimes it takes something like going through this to realize it.”

Doctors told Thompson he would need about a year from his last chemo treatment to start of feel normal again. They were correct.

“It was about a year when I got my energy back and started doing the things I wanted to do,” he said.

The latest scan showed the rectal cancer is gone, though there are still concerns about the cancer that had spread into other areas. “But the great news is the areas they are worried about are getting smaller,” he said. “We just pray they continue to get smaller. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t on my mind from time to time, but everything is good right now.”

He will go back every three months for further scans. But for now and the foreseeable future, Thompson is back to work and coaching the tight ends, fullbacks and scout team at Guerin Catholic.

“When he was going through chemo and everything and struggling every day to just get up and do his job and function, it was tough,” Max said. “Seeing him on the football field just makes my day better. It’s always better when he’s there. He’s one of the most positive guys and a big motivator for me.”

At the end of practice, Dilley allows players to make a prayer intention if they choose. “Coach Thompson” was brought up often, especially after his chemotherapy treatments in 2022.

“He didn’t share a lot of details,” Dilley said. “We knew he was hurting pretty good inside and he eventually shared it with the team. They all love him and love his family. There was a lot of nervousness for him.”

If anything, Thompson hopes his diagnosis will help others. The wife of one of his friends told him, “You saved my life,” after a doctor found cancerous polyps during her colonoscopy.

Thompson said he feels like he’s “not on the steep hill” anymore, which feels good. He’s enjoying every minute he can spend with Max and Eva this season.

“Cancer aside, spend time on what’s important to you,” Thompson said. “… You can only go around once.”

Call Star reporter Kyle Neddenriep at (317) 444-6649.