This Mizzou Tigers walk-on from Lee’s Summit beat cancer & became a team captain

Most likely even Mizzou football fans seldom have heard the name Logan Muckey, a senior receiver who’s had one catch for 6 yards in his career. And that low profile bothers him … not at all.

Because his joy is in being part of something bigger than himself and in what he contributes beyond stat lines through the essential grind of special-teams play.

That’s a virtue that stands as its own reward, especially for a humble guy who is most proud to have gone from walk-on to scholarship recipient to one of Mizzou’s nine team captains because of how his coaches and teammates see him.

“He’s a guy people look up to: his story, his work ethic …” said star left tackle Cayden Green, who also was Muckey’s teammate at Lee’s Summit North High. “We voted him captain for a reason. He’s really a guy of influence on this team.”

So Muckey already enjoyed that respect and stature even before he was diagnosed in April with papillary thyroid cancer, something he initially sought to keep to himself and his family.

“I didn’t want to make it ‘a deal,’” he said Tuesday in an interview with The Star. “I didn’t want to make anything about me.”

Since Muckey always is smiling and has “always got juice (and) … a bunch of energy,” Green said teammates never would have known unless coach Eli Drinkwitz had told them.

For one thing, that’s because Muckey figured many people had it worse. And the MU staff, led by director of football sports medicine Zach Parker, and the medical team at MU’s Ellis Fischel Cancer Center promptly reassured him that it was entirely treatable.

Hearing the very word “cancer” and knowing its potential to kill naturally conjured dread in Muckey’s parents, Darren and Kristy. But Logan’s measured and methodical approach reassured them.

“He was in a very calm state of mind, which kept me calm and kept his mother calm,” Darren Muckey said in a phone interview, later adding that those treating him “were his rock. And in so doing he was kind of our rock.”

Now the radiant Muckey, who said he was declared “100% cancer-free” after having the mass removed in May, is learning that the story he was initially reluctant to share can make him a rock for others yet.

After Mizzou’s 52-10 victory over Louisiana last week, for instance, Muckey went to see his parents and then headed toward the locker room when he heard someone calling his name.

Choking up as he described it, Darren said Logan was surprised since he figured he had just spoken with the two people who know his name.

Then he saw who was calling him: a father with a young son wearing a Muckey No. 82 jersey.

Because the boy also has had to contend with cancer.

They’d heard Muckey’s story, they told him, and were inspired by him.

Next thing you know, Logan is hugging the boy and giving him his game gloves and taking pictures with the family.

“The kid just never stops amazing me,” his father said.

No doubt it’s in a different sort of way than Logan had hoped to be a positive influence: demonstrating the perseverance and grit that led him to a scholarship and the forever honor of being a team captain.

Then again, maybe the message of resolve isn’t so different.

Fighting uphill with odds stacked against him, as he put it in a news conference last month, buoyed by never feeling like he was walking alone — whether when he was walking-on or walking into the apprehension of being told he had cancer.

So having people reach out to him or seek him out after games, he said, makes for an “awesome” opportunity to inspire.

“That’s all I’ve wanted to do, is be a positive impact for others in any way possible,” he said. “And if this is the way that I can do that, I love it.”

That’s just one of the ways that Muckey has seen what he considers blessings in disguise all through this journey.

Starting with the sore throat that compelled him to go to the doctor.

“If I never had that infection in my tonsil, I never would have noticed,” he said. “Because the mass itself never affected or bothered me.”

Without that, he’d never have undergone the CT scan that ultimately led to the diagnosis with an 80 % likelihood of being cancerous. Post-operation tests confirmed the mass was indeed cancer.

“I never would have noticed it until it (would) have been so much bigger, so much worse,” he said. “So God works in mysterious ways, and that was one of them for sure.”

All through the weeks ahead, toward the surgery in late May and 10 days of recovery, he was heartened not only by terrific and tender medical care and the love of his family, but also by a deeper realization of what he means to his Mizzou teammates.

“I was flooded with love, flooded with support …” he said. “It really brought me and this team closer than we’ve ever been before. … They were with me the whole time.”

So he knows he’s fortunate and is deeply cognizant of how many others have much worse to deal with.

But his example resounds nonetheless, perhaps especially in his mindset of approaching the diagnosis not as the end of a story but the beginning.

He’s “living his best life,” Darren Muckey says. Which was apparent to anyone who saw his glowing demeanor as he spoke for the first time at a Mizzou news conference last month.

Meaning Logan says this has all made him stronger and built his character and made him grateful just to wake up every day.

“It allows me now to truly embrace and take in every moment that I have …” he said. “It opened my eyes. Changed my perspective on a lot of things. …

“Because everything you have could be gone in a matter of an instant.”

Part of Muckey’s fulfillment now is his longtime allegiance to Mizzou — where he’d always wanted to go with or without a scholarship after being a three-time all-conference player in high school.

That’s why he’s basked in wearing Mizzou across his chest every time he steps on the field.

Now more than ever, in the box score or not, Mizzou and its fans can be just as proud to have him honoring their jerseys.

Vahe Gregorian

The Kansas City Star

816-234-4868

Vahe Gregorian has been a sports columnist for The Kansas City Star since 2013 after 25 years at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He has covered a wide spectrum of sports, including 10 Olympics. Vahe was an English major at the University of Pennsylvania and earned his master’s degree at Mizzou.