Updated April 3, 2025
The last several months have been another rough stretch for beloved former Gopher football player and cancer survivor Casey O’Brien who turns 26 on Monday.
His father Dan detailed the story in a recent interview with Sports Headliners. Casey has battled osteosarcoma, a bone disease, since he was a freshman at Cretin-Derham Hall. Dan said things took a “turn on us” in December and that led to 30 days at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester.
The cancer had moved into Casey’s lungs and impacted their function. “…It’s his breathing that’s been the biggest challenge (of late),” Dan said. “We spent some time down in Mayo. We spent some time in Chicago doing some different things—kind of cutting-edge stuff—and happy to say he’s getting a little bit better. We still have a long, long way to go, but we’re seeing some progress. So that piece is good.”
The cutting-edge procedures are an experiment for Casey who has beaten away cancer many times only to see it return. But he and his father remain upbeat about the outcomes.
“We think so,” Dan said. “You never know for sure what’s hiding in your body somewhere or what (else). …We’re screening…with some spot treatment and also with an overall chemotherapy which will touch his entire body.”
Dan resigned from his position as head football coach at Holy Family Catholic High School in January to move into a full-time support role for Casey who works as a financial advisor for RBC in downtown Minneapolis. “He loves it,” Dan said about Casey’s career.
Casey works from home in the mornings and Dan said “we get him downtown” in the afternoon. He described RBC’s support for his son as “phenomenal.”
There are times when Casey receives oxygen to help him breathe. Going for a walk is one of those instances.
Most people who face cancer multiple times don’t survive, but Casey battles on. And then there are all the surgeries he has faced. More than 40?
“Forty plus,” Dan said. “We couldn’t even tell you. We stopped counting with all the different procedures.”
If Casey’s cancer story sounds unique that’s because it is, according to his father. “There hasn’t been another case like him ever. Where they can say, ‘All right this is what we’ve seen and this is what it looks like.’
“He’s had cancer seven times. How many people do you know that have had cancer seven times? I know zero outside of Casey.”
Most of us can’t even imagine the physical and mental strength needed for a saga like Casey’s. “He’s so strong mentally,” Dan said. “So positive. We’re fortunate that he is wired that way. But it’s been a long fight. It’s been 11 years.”
Casey was part of the U football program for four seasons. He played in two games during his career, including 2019 against Rutgers where he held the football three times on point-after kicks. The 6-1, 185-pound walk-on earned two letters before retiring from football at Minnesota after the 2020 season.
A Carlson School of Management graduate, Casey’s courageous cancer battles were well-documented at Minnesota, receiving local and national attention. He was the 2019 keynote speaker on behalf of the league players at the Big Ten Football Kickoff Luncheon. Later that year he won the Disney Spirit Award as the most inspirational player in college football.
Casey, who during his career was honored for his academics and sportsmanship by the Big Ten, was embraced at the U by head coach P.J. Fleck and the entire program. Fleck’s feelings for Casey are through the roof.
“Casey is one of the most special individuals that I have ever met,” Fleck told Sports Headliners via email. “I am not sure that people understand or know how much Casey has overcome and endured in his life. He is a multiple-time cancer survivor and is still battling today.
“His story is one that has impacted a community and a sport. He has inspired countless lives and changed the way people look at cancer survivors.
“He always has a smile on his face and always has a positive attitude. It’s amazing really. Casey is a daily reminder to our team and program that we Get 2 to lift weights, that we Get 2 practice and that we Get 2 coach and play this amazing game.
“You get (in) coaching to positively impact the lives of young people. Rarely do you think that one of your players will impact you in such a meaningful way, but watching Casey play at Rutgers in 2019—and knowing everything he overcame to get there –is the most impactful moment of my career.
“It was a privilege to coach him and it’s an honor to call him a friend. He’s a Minnesota legend, and I have such a tremendous amount of love and admiration for him.”
Fleck’s feelings, and that of so many others, is documented in numerous ways including last year when the family knew insurance wasn’t going to cover six-figure non-traditional medical costs. In August Casey launched a GoFundMe page and wrote in part: “My family and I have spent over four hundred nights in the hospital and been seen by specialists across the country. I have faced adversity every step of the way in my seven relapses with cancer, but I have always found a way to smile and live life the way I have wanted.”
How did the community respond? His GoFundMe page reports that $394,328 was raised!
Dan said: “The response has been overwhelming. And it was an emotional decision to say, hey, you know what? We need help. We don’t have the finances to pay for some of these things, and we’re running out of options that the insurance will cover.
“But to say…I gotta have some help taking care of my kid, that’s a hard thing for any parent to do and it certainly was for us. But to see the amount of people that wanted to say, hey, we just want to help. What can we do to help? It was phenomenal. I get emotional thinking about it.”
The outpouring of love and support for Casey has been profound but he has also dramatically given back to others. “As a parent you couldn’t be more proud,” Dan said. “The example he’s been. The role model he’s been for other kids with cancer. He’s helped so many people.
“He truly is one of the types of people that thinks about other people more than he thinks about himself, and sometimes that’s hard when you don’t feel good. You feel like crap and you got stuff wrong (with you). You got tubes hanging out of you and everything else. And you feel like you’re never getting a break but somehow, he figures out a way to put other people’s needs in front of his own.”
Casey treasures his memories and relationships from the U. He remains close with the three former Gopher players that he lived with while at Minnesota. Casey and Joe Russell, Grant Ryerse and Clint Witherspoon got together just the other day.
Their friendship and the support of others close to Casey mean everything. “I think he’d probably tell you he hasn’t had a lot of fun lately,” Dan said. “He’s got some fantastic friends. Fantastic support group.
“Both his mother and I come from big families, and they’ve been great about being around to see him and those kind of things. Family and friends are the things that kind of keep him going and keep him motivated.”
Anyone prepared to break bread with Casey will learn he is strict about his diet. “He hasn’t had much of an appetite so that’s been actually one of our challenges because he’s lost some weight,” Dan said. “He’s trying to get some weight back on but he’s very particular with his diet so he eats incredibly clean.
“If it has more than five ingredients, he doesn’t eat it. He’s eating chicken, he’s eating fish, he’s eating rice, vegetables, fruits. He kills broccoli, kills it. I’ve never seen anybody eat broccoli like he does.”
Dan assisted Jerry Kill in administration when he headed the Gopher program. The two men remain close friends. Kill knows so well not only what the difficulties have been for Casey but the challenges for the whole family.
This week Kill responded to a text message asking about his feelings regarding the O’Briens:
“Casey is no doubt the toughest person I have ever met, period! Their family has been through (so) much and they just are the best. They all will get a one-way ticket to heaven. I have never met a mentally tougher family.”
Dan, 60, is a football lifer but wants to be “all in” before he coaches again. That certainly could be on the horizon, and he’s interested in varied roles at different levels of football. “I just want to be engaged in the game and be around kids. I’ve got a couple different things that are in the hopper that I don’t want to say too much about but hopefully I’ll be on the field somewhere this fall.”
And what about the days ahead for Casey? “His deal is he’s still going to keep throwing punches,” dad said.