Faith, family and football: Husker sports announcer's positivity endures his battle with pancreatic cancer

Faith, family and football.

For many, the alliteration serves as the answer to "What are you thankful for?"

For Greg Sharpe, the word "thankful" doesn’t suffice.

At the beginning of 2024, the Huskers Radio Network announcer visited his daughter, who was living and working overseas. At the time, he was dealing with intense shoulder pain, to the point of needing Tylenol for everyday activities.

He got an MRI when he returned to the states — thinking he may have a rotator cuff issue.

“But that's not how it ended up being,” Sharpe said. “The MRI revealed a tumor in the shoulder, and tumors obviously don't start there. They start with an organ of some type, so then I went and did more scans. That's when they found that it was pancreatic cancer with spots also in the liver and the lung.”

In April 2024, he was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. It has a five-year survival rate of 1%. The average patient lives about one year after receiving the diagnosis, according to Johns Hopkins.

With the jarring news heavy on his mind, the longtime Husker football and baseball play-by-play broadcaster focused on two dates.

Aug. 31, 2024 and Feb. 22, 2025.

Aug. 31 was the opening game of the Husker football season. He wanted to make it back to the booth for the kickoff to the 2024 season.

Check.

“I'll be honest, I was really nervous that first football game,” Sharpe said, “whether I had enough gas in the tank to pull it off for a three and a half hour broadcast.”

His chemotherapy treatments led to three hospital visits last spring and summer. But his doctors found a better chemo mix just in time for the season.

Sharpe has been the Voice of the Huskers for 17 years. He called every game but two last regular season.

“If you'd have told me that back in July, I probably would have laughed,” Sharpe said. “I would have said ‘There's no way I could call 10 of the 12 games.’”

For one of the games he missed, he had surgery on his shoulder. Even then, Sharpe listened to the second half of an overtime loss to Illinois on his way back from the hospital.

The sportscasting community rose to the occasion and picked up the headset in his absence. Sharpe said he’s thankful for that and for the several on-call Saturdays when his peers prepared to broadcast, not knowing whether Sharpe would be able to hit the air.

But when he was in that broadcasting booth, Sharpe said he felt alive.

“It was therapeutic for me to kind of try to keep life as normal as possible, do the things I love. I love calling games and I love the Huskers,” Sharpe said. “So to be able to do those two things, I think really has extended my life, to be honest with you, because if I didn't have something like that kind of hovering over my head, I don't know that I would have the fight to make it through that.”

Broadcasting and the Cornhuskers are far from the only things getting him out of bed. Sharpe leans heavily on his family and his faith.

In the last 10 months, the Husker family has been with him. Fans shared stories of how influential Sharpe’s resilience has been.

“I have been overwhelmed with the number of emails, letters, people reaching out through social media to tell me that they're with me in this fight," he said. "Sometimes you don't know the impact you have on people until it's too late. Well, because I'm still here, they can get that thought process to me. And I've said this several times, I wish there was a word stronger, or a set of words stronger than thank you, because that doesn't seem adequate, but man, I'm so thankful.”

The University of Nebraska Athletic Department reciprocated the appreciation. It named the Memorial Stadium broadcast booth in his honor. Sharpe’s name now lives inside the stadium that brought him so much joy and life last fall.

“It was hard to hold the tears back there,” Sharpe said. “What made it even better was my wife and two of my daughters were there to witness the whole thing. That was so, so special.”

Sharpe’s word-for-word call of a 2013 Husker football Hail Mary touchdown to defeat Northwestern is represented on a plaque in the booth. The last-second score lifted the Big Red to a 27-24 win.

Relive Sharpe's account of the 49-yard, last second touchdown:

It’s a play that many young Husker football fans would consider one of the most memorable of their lifetime.

Another unforgettable moment the athletic department staff considered recognizing came in Sharpe’s first year working in Lincoln: the 2008 Colorado game.

Alex Henery nailed a 57-yard field goal in the thrilling 40-31 victory. The kick set a record for longest made field goal in program history.

Hear Sharpe and Davison's call of the record-setting kick against conference rival Colorado:

Sharpe's family has been there step by step. The radio booth dedication was far from the only day they stood by his side.

“My wife's been phenomenal, and I've told her — she doesn't want to agree with this — but she's, I think, the main reason I'm still here,” Sharpe said. “She's right there by my side every day.”

He also wanted at least one more big family Christmas.

“They all drove up from Kansas to do it here in Lincoln. So again, they're going out of their way to accommodate me, although I think it was our turn to host, but that was special,” Sharpe said. “We love our time around Christmas in the Sharpe family.”

His brothers and brother-in-law made a separate trip from Kansas City to reflect on life.

“They're checking on me every day, and that support system is so important,” Sharpe said. “And I'm blessed, because I know a lot of people don't have that, and I can't imagine trying to tackle this on your own.”

Faithfulness has been another stabilizer in his life.

Sharpe left his broadcasting gig at Kansas State University, his alma mater, in 2008 for a job with the Huskers Radio Network in Lincoln. Since then, they’ve attended St. Mark's United Methodist Church.

One Sunday following his diagnosis, a member of the church provided a thoughtful perspective.

“I was at church one Sunday back in late April, word had just gotten out what I was doing,” Sharpe said. “A guy came up to me and said, ‘I've battled cancer for the last 20 years.' And he said ‘This is more important than whatever pill you're on, whatever treatment you're getting, is a positive attitude. If you carry a positive attitude, it's going to have more weight to how long you fight through this thing than if you don't.’ And that struck a chord in me, that I've got to push myself to get up every day, go do something, even when I don't feel well.”

Sharpe said that can apply to many situations.

“And doggonit. I think he's right. Positive attitudes will take you a long, long way,” Sharpe said.

His family and church community have helped him stay positive during his fight with cancer.

Sharpe counts his blessings each day, while also losing a bit of energy.

“I'm realistic. I know the odds were stacked against me. I knew that from day one, once the diagnosis came down,” Sharpe said. “You can either just go sit and lay around all day and let it take its course as quickly as possible. Or, you get up and you move and you go.”

The college baseball season starts Friday. Nebraska plays the University of California Irvine in Scottsdale, Arizona, in its first matchup of the season.

Around Thanksgiving time in 2024, doctors found that his chemo treatments weren't working well. Sharpe said that's brought him into a new phase of managing pain and making life as comfortable as possible.

He likely won’t be in the booth this spring.

“I probably won't attempt to do baseball this spring, unless I get better,” Sharpe said. “And there's certainly that chance, probably a slim one, but just probably not anymore baseball in Greg Sharpe’s future, unfortunately.”

The Huskers play in Arizona, Louisiana and Texas to start the year but return to Lincoln in March. If there’s an afternoon home game and he feels okay, Sharpe said he might give it a go.

The last time Greg Sharpe announced a University of Nebraska baseball game, the team played in the Big Ten Tournament Championship in late May 2024.

Listen to Sharpe's call of the final out from the 2024 Big Ten Tournament title win for Nebraska:

Come Friday, rest assured that Sharpe will have his radio dial turned to the Huskers Radio Network for the Cornhuskers’ opener — hanging on every word — as the program looks to defend its first Big Ten Tournament title.

But the magic didn’t end there.

In what could be his last football broadcast, the Huskers earned bowl eligibility for the first time in eight years with a runaway win against Wisconsin.

Listen to Sharpe's most recent football broadcast of the final seconds of a 44-25 win over Wisconsin to become bowl eligible:

As it stands, Sharpe’s most recent football and baseball games were historic. The Husker football team attained bowl eligibility, snapping the longest postseason drought among power conference schools, and the baseball team won its first Big Ten Tournament title.

He thanks the fans for fighting alongside him.

“I know they're praying for me on a daily basis, and that means so much. I think all that together: their support, the ability for my doctors to get me on a good mix, to give me enough energy to get through the football season would be a pretty good ending to this,” Sharpe said. “Hope it's not the total ending, but it would be a pretty good ending to the story.”

Though pancreatic cancer has been tough to tackle, new immunotherapy and chemotherapy treatments are in research phases to better grapple with the disease. Sharpe said it’s important to help organizations joining in the fight against cancer.

“I encourage people, when you have a chance to support the American Cancer Society or something like that, highly think of that,” Sharpe said, “because there are so many — almost every family in this country is affected in some way by cancer at some point in their lifetime.”

Even though Sharpe probably won't put on the headset this baseball season, he continues to push through the pain, in search of at least one more special day.

And it doesn’t have to do with the Huskers.

It’s Feb. 22, his oldest daughter’s wedding day.

“That's my next milepost. And sitting here today, I feel like I'm going to make that too,” Sharpe said.

His goal to make the wedding epitomizes Sharpe’s demeanor.

“That's kind of been how I’ve spent my life all along. Don’t just sit around, get up and do something, be productive today,” Sharpe said. “Make today something that you can sit back at the end of the night and go, ‘That was a pretty good day.’”

From Hail Mary touchdowns to crushing defeats, Greg Sharpe has talked Husker fans through many highs and lows in his 17 years in Lincoln.

More than any improbable touchdown pass, being present for his daughter’s wedding on Feb. 22, would be the biggest answered prayer yet.