Belvidere High School Junior uses love of football to battle cancer

BELVIDERE, Ill. (WTVO) — Michael Perez has been running with a football for as long as he can remember. However, he received a medical diagnosis that threatened to cut his career short. In July of 2024, he was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer, Ewing Sarcoma.

“It was kind of a shock,” Susanna Aguirre, Micheal’s mother said. “We never had a case of cancer in our family, so it was just wondering how did it happen and where did it come from.”

Michael and his family had to travel to a specialty hospital in Madison, WI to undergo an extensive surgery to remove a baseball-sized tumor, along with consistent chemotherapy, according to Aguirre. The chemotherapy would keep Michael out of school for the majority of his sophomore year at Belvidere High School.

Throughout Michael’s battle, he says he received an overwhelming amount of support from family, friends, teammates and coaches.

“People would text me whenever I would come to games, practices or when I was going through treatments. They would give me good greetings and other things,” he said.

Michael is one of few words. He lets his actions speak louder. When he was able to return to the team this season, he made sure his teammates knew it would be business as usual.

“Michael kind of took the lead with things. He had acted like nothing changed and his teammates treated him that way,” Sean Donnelly, Belvidere High School’s head football coach said. He’s still a big part of our team. He’s smiling all of the time. He still brings energy. Even with his diagnosis, he hasn’t changed.”

After seeing progress with the initial tumor shrinking, Michael and his family learned of a new tumor developing near his lungs. That news, though, did not faze him. He shared with Eyewitness News that he still plans to be ready for his senior season.

“I hope to be able to play next year,” Michael said, “I have friends on this team that I’ve had long relationships with and I like to hang around with them,”