Plymouth Whitemarsh senior running back Luke Winterbottom is back on the field for summer football workouts after receiving a cancer diagnosis and spending months in treatment, writes Jamie Apody for 6ABC.

“As a junior, he was an all-league running back,” said Plymouth Whitemarsh head coach Dan Chang. “He was a guy we’d feed the ball to all the time.”

However, after the season ended, there was no guarantee that he would ever play ball again.

“Throughout the whole season I had a very bad cough that wouldn’t go away,” said Winterbottom.

Still, he continued playing and excelling on the field with 14 touchdowns and an average of 11.6 yards per carry. However, in November, he was handed a diagnosis nobody could have foreseen.

 “Me and my family never thought it was cancer,” said the player.

The teen was faced with Hodgkin’s lymphoma and had to undergo five rounds of intensive chemotherapy and 20 days of radiation.

Now, he is back on the field and eager to prove himself once again.

“When you’ve got a guy fighting for his life and coming back stronger than ever, he’s definitely a role model for us in that way,” said Chang.

Read more about Luke Winterbottom at 6ABC.