Dakota’s journey from St. Jude cancer treatment to Division I golf is a triumph years in the making

It’s 4:30 a.m., and Dakota is already in motion — stretching and rehearsing the rhythm of a game that demands not just skill, but stamina. Each tournament day is a 6½-mile walk. He arrives early. Warms up. Plays five hours. Then practices again.

This is the life of a Division I golfer. But Dakota’s journey to college athletics didn’t start on a fairway. It started at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital®. 

At 11, Dakota was unstoppable — a competitive soccer player, a snowboarder since age 4, a black belt in Taekwondo. 

Then, he started to have some swelling in his lymph nodes around his neck and a sore throat. His primary care physician suspected an infection and prescribed antibiotics.  

The swelling seemed to improve temporarily, but then in the middle of a soccer match, his neck just seemed to vanish. The swelling was so intense that his jawline ran straight into his shoulders without a curve or taper to indicate where a neck should be. “It happened that fast,” Dakota said.

Scans at his local hospital revealed the swollen lymph nodes were compressing his trachea. Dakota was breathing through a space as narrow as a coffee stir stick. While these scans could indicate leukemia or lymphoma, he also had symptoms of an acute infection, which can also cause lymph nodes to swell. He was referred to St. Jude for more testing.  

His father, Steve, remembers the fear. “I kept telling my wife, Trish, ‘I need a diagnosis. I just need a plan.’”

The diagnosis was acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). The plan: Dakota would be treated with two and a half years of chemotherapy on Total Therapy Study 17, a clinical trial protocol based on each patient’s DNA analysis and built on a foundation of more than five decades of St. Jude clinical trials treating ALL. Steve recalls the moment Dakota’s doctor laid it out.  

“OK,” Steve thought, “I don’t have to worry about this anymore. He’s got it.”

But the road through treatment to recovery was hard. Dakota lost more than 15% of his body weight. He experienced chronic back pain, pancreatitis and symptoms of peripheral neuropathy such as foot drop, a difficulty in lifting the front part of the feet.  

“I got every type of complication,” Dakota said.

Golf became his way back. “I used golf as my physical therapy,” he said. “It rebuilt me.” 

In one match, he became sick before teeing off. He still played and shot a 69, winning by nine strokes.

Near the end of treatment, at 14, Dakota told his dad. “I want to make a run at playing D1 golf.” 

Steve, a former mini-tour player in golf’s regional circuits, didn’t hesitate. “You’ve got the talent,” he told him. “But it’s going to take hard work.” 

They secured a private trainer. Dakota was operating at just 60 to 65% of a typical 14-year-old’s physical capacity, the trainer told them. 

But they didn’t stop.

To counteract foot drop, his physical therapists at St. Jude would have Dakota stand on a ramp. Working with the trainer, Steve installed a similar ramp for daily balance work at home. Through all these efforts, the foot drop resolved over time. 

The clinical trial that Dakota was treated on was also studying a treatment that involves balancing on a vibrating surface with a goal of preserving and enhancing bone density. In their experience, it seemed to make “a huge difference,” Steve said.

Coaches began to notice. One told Dakota he had one of the best warmups he’d ever seen.  

A full-ride offer to college fell through. Dakota kept going.

Then came the turning point: After shooting -12 for two days and winning by 7 on a long, demanding golf course, Dakota got a call from the coach at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. He hadn’t seen Dakota play and didn’t know about the cancer. But he’d seen the stats. 

Dakota had his full ride.

“Without St. Jude,” Steve said, “we wouldn’t be standing here talking about Dakota going to a D1 college playing golf.” 

Steve credits the ramp. The balance work on the vibrating surface. And something deeper. A feeling he had from the beginning, when Dakota’s doctor described the treatment protocol. In the middle of the chaos of cancer, Steve suddenly felt calm.

St. Jude had a plan built on decades of research and care. And Steve has always appreciated a good plan. 

“Without St. Jude, do you honestly think he’d be able to walk 6½ miles on tournament day, wake up at 4:30 a.m., warm up for an hour, play five hours and then practice again?”

Next to him, Dakota answers quietly: “No.” 

Steve nods.

“But he does.”