From thin and weak to starting quarterback: How Anton Amundrud beat cancer and returned to play

The Huskies star returns to centre when the official season starts Sept. 5.

There are sixteen steps that lead to the top floor of a classic house on 4th Street, close to the University of Saskatchewan campus in the house. The stairs start where the living room and kitchen meet, go up eight steps, turn right in a tight hairpin, then another eight steps to the bedrooms and bathrooms where five Huskies football players live for the players.

The quarterback lives up there. In mid‑October of last season he was the favorite for the Hec Crighton Trophy, the award for the best U Sports football player in Canada. In the first five games the Huskies were unbeaten and Anton Amundrud threw for an average of 328 yards per game with no interceptions.

“Oh man, he was playing lights‑out football,” said Ryker Frank, a fifth‑year running back.

“He was big, he was strong, he was making all the throws,” said Joel Lipinski, the Huskies’ strength and conditioning coach.

“Anton is our guy,” said Huskies head coach Scott Flory.

Two months later Amundrud had lost more than 30 pounds, was bald, had no eyebrows and looked like a shadow of his former self. He was undergoing chemotherapy. Doctors finally gave him a rare, hard‑to‑pronounce diagnosis: T‑cell non‑Hodgkin’s lymphoma and hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis. It is worse than it sounds.

Going up those stairs hurt. Amundrud held the railing tightly. Each step felt exhausting. It took him four minutes to climb the sixteen steps to his bedroom.

A few days earlier the team’s leader stood before the Huskies for an unexpected meeting. University officials sat at the back. Flory cleared his throat and told them the news about their quarterback.

“He’s fighting for his life,” Flory said. Shock filled the room. Tears fell. Faces showed fear and uncertainty.

Across town the biggest battle Amundrud thought about was how to climb those sixteen stairs to his bed.

“Each step felt like my legs were too weak to move my body,” Amundrud said, his voice flat.

It has been a little more than seven months since Flory gave the news. On a beautiful late‑June morning in Saskatoon, Amundrud sits in his SUV talking about football.

He drives now, and he will drive again on Saturday when one of the greatest comeback stories finishes. On opening day of the Huskies’ 2026 season, Anton Amundrud will be Saskatchewan’s starting quarterback against the Manitoba Bisons. After a bumpy road of perseverance and belief, he finally lands smoothly.

From the first sign – yellow eyes and feeling ill – to his hospital stay a week before last Halloween, endless tests, chemo rounds, weight loss and clinging to the stair railing, Amundrud’s only focus was: when can I play again?

It seemed impossible. He weighed 205 pounds in October, dropped to 173 pounds when he left the hospital a month later. More chemo cycles lay ahead. Some mornings getting out of bed felt impossible. Yet his stubborn mindset stayed: follow the doctors’ orders and “you’ll put yourself in a position to get back onto the field.”

He remembers parking his car across from the house with the sixteen stairs. He recalls a dark moment before Christmas, sitting on the couch while friends played video games, when he saw a football under the coffee table.

He described himself as “topless, hairless, just skin and bones.” He called Frank, the talented Huskies tailback, to the kitchen and threw a spiral to him.

Frank caught the ball, tucked it under his arm and smiled. “You still have it,” he told his roommate.

Anton Amundrud, quarterback for the Saskatchewan Huskies.

“When people get bad news, they go through many stages of grief,” Flory said. “But Anton immediately looked for a solution. He thought, ‘I know this is happening. I will beat it. I will play football again.’

“And he didn’t go down the doom‑filled path.”

Amundrud did not do it alone. He walks into the house this summer, hair grown back, body near playing weight. A note with his parents’ phone numbers still sits on the fridge. His parents, Paul and Jennifer, traveled back and forth from Lloydminster, Alberta, and the support in Saskatoon was remarkable.

Shannon Chinn, the university’s chief athletic officer, made sure his parents had a place to stay on campus.

“If I needed anything, Shannon was there,” Amundrud said.

Flory texted his quarterback often. By mid‑December, when Amundrud could finally eat, Lipinski set up a meal program. A GoFundMe launched in November raised over $60,000, helping Amundrud regain health and football shape.

“People have just been helping incredibly,” Amundrud said.

“There’s real life, and then there’s the game,” Flory said. “It’s hard to keep them separate.”

No one fully understood what their quarterback was enduring. When Amundrud first went to the hospital on Oct. 24, he thought he would be there a day or two. It turned into weeks, then longer. Doctors were unsure of the diagnosis – could it be an autoimmune issue, a severe flu? Ultrasounds showed an enlarged spleen and liver; biopsies followed. He endured countless blood tests, IVs, antibiotics and other medicines. In early November, he still hoped, “I’ll be out soon. I’ll be there for playoffs.”

It wasn’t soon, and he watched the playoffs from his hospital bed. Days before the Canada West title, specialists performed a bone‑marrow biopsy on his back, saying results would take about a week. Meanwhile, the Hardy Cup was still to be won, and teammates visited each evening to talk football.

He watched practice film on his tablet. When the Huskies beat Regina on Nov. 8 to reach the Mitchell Bowl, the players brought a gold medal and championship hat to his hospital room.

Two days later the diagnosis that shocked everyone arrived. His first question to the doctors was simple: “Can I play?”

The answer was not what he wanted. The cancer was aggressive. On Tuesday, Flory told the team the plan the oncologists had made. The next morning, as the Huskies prepared for the Mitchell Bowl against Queen’s, Amundrud’s treatment began – three days of chemotherapy, four hours each day, with chemo bags draining into his body.

With almost no white blood cells, he became very sick during the first cycle. His throat felt like fire, making it hard to eat, swallow or talk. He trembled so much that medication was needed to relax his muscles and nerves. He had to be numbed to eat or drink, and each bite felt like razor blades.

He only flinched when describing the aftermath of that first three‑day punch.

“It was pretty difficult,” he said modestly.

A 21‑day recovery followed the first round, then a second three‑day chemo cycle. In total, six cycles ran from Nov. 12 to Feb. 28.

A small relief came in late November: the first three‑day treatment showed progress and follow‑up tests said he was healthy enough to go home. On Nov. 27 he left the hospital to recover in his own bed, still needing to climb those sixteen stairs.

Montreal Carabins beat Saskatchewan Huskies to capture the Vanier Cup.

After the Vanier Cup, the 2025 Huskies held a final team meeting. Jake Farrell, Amundrud’s backup, played quarterback and performed well. The Huskies were close at halftime, but Montreal’s defence was strong and they won 30‑16.

When Flory gathered the team one last time, a surprise guest appeared. It was not a pleasant sight. Strength coach Lipinski could not believe what he saw.

“Anton walked around hunched over, taking tiny steps. He looked like an 80‑year‑old,” Lipinski said. “Seeing a young, vibrant kid reduced by chemo was shocking. It made the whole team realize how real his fight for life was.”

In that state, Amundrud shuffled to Lipinski, looked up and asked, “What must I do to be ready to play next year?”

Amundrud kept telling Flory he would be back. The coach repeatedly said, “Anton is our starting quarterback and will play when doctors clear him.”

Watching the cancer’s effect on Amundrud, Flory wondered, “Can he get back in shape fast enough for a doctor to say ‘yes’? If a 290‑pound lineman hits you, you won’t crumble, right?”

If Amundrud was so weak after one chemo cycle, where would he be after six? No one knew.

Flory never doubted Amundrud, but his mind kept returning to one question: Can Amundrud, in time, regain the physical ability needed to perform at an elite football level?

Lipinski said, “His mental state helped him survive. That mindset became the main force that kept him going.”

Every three weeks, starting late December, Amundrud returned to the Saskatoon Cancer Centre for three days of treatment. He sat in a recliner from 8 a.m. to noon while more chemo bags emptied into him, then rested for three weeks.

Alone in the mornings, he told himself, “Everything will be fine, everything will be okay. I’m not worried.” He followed the doctors, got healthy, and aimed to beat the disease.

Amundrud believes attitude shapes destiny. The seriousness of his illness didn’t fully hit him until months later. By the end of February, his goal was simply to finish chemo, then prepare for a PET scan in late March to see if the treatment had worked after his weight fell to 173 pounds.

On the first day of April, after blood work, he met Dr. Waleed Sabry, an oncologist at the Saskatoon Cancer Centre. Dr. Sabry opened an envelope and showed scans: no more signs of lymphoma, the disease was completely cured, no cancer left.

“We’re good,” Dr. Sabry told him.

Amundrud left the clinic and called his parents with the news. His mother began to cry.

“They knew I would beat it. I’m stubborn,” Amundrud said. “It was awesome, a great day. I know I’m one of the lucky ones.”

The next call was to Lipinski, with one message: “Let’s let it rip.”

Just months before, Amundrud could not climb stairs or do a push‑up. His knees were too weak to sweat. The gym plan started with tiny loads, checking progress daily and slowly increasing – “This is a marathon,” Lipinski told him.

They first rebuilt joint stability, then cardio. He walked on a treadmill, lasting only two minutes the first day, then added a little more each morning. Next they built shoulder strength and rotation needed for throwing.

By May, he was cleared for individual on‑field work, tossing the ball in spring practice like his old self. In late June he felt about 80 % recovered. He regained weight, now over 205 pounds, and his ball‑handling was sharp.

“He’s still special, it’s almost effortless to see him stand and launch a 50‑yard pass,” Lipinski said.

Frank has known Amundrud since they were kids in the Huskies program and has never seen him so driven. Amundrud’s guilty pleasure is McDonald’s, but he avoided fast food all summer.

“It’s a different business now,” Frank said.

When fall camp opened, Amundrud told coaches and teammates he felt better than ever. His arm strength returned. Any doubts about his return were answered in camp and in a strong pre‑season game against Alberta last week.

“He’s looking for ways to add to what he can now do to become the best version of himself,” Lipinski said.

That best version will take the field on Saturday as the Huskies defend their conference championship. Amundrud has been cleared medically. He is Saskatchewan’s starting quarterback for his final season of eligibility.

“I wasn’t exactly sure what it would look like in the fall, but I knew I would do everything I could to be back out there,” Amundrud said. “It’s hard to believe I am at this point.”

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