'I'm not walking alone': Mizzou's Logan Muckey beats cancer, earns captain nod
Athletes often talk about adversity.
A tough game. A tough practice. Needing to play through the heat or the snow. A tough team in front of them.
But there’s a difference between adversity in a game and adversity in life.
Missouri walk-on receiver Logan Muckey learned that the hard way this offseason.
“Back in April of this past year, I was diagnosed with papillary thyroid cancer,” Muckey said. “… It was a shocker for me, shocker for my family, shocker for my friends, my teammates. Being 22 years old, that’s not really something you wanna hear about yourself.”
Papillary thyroid cancer is the most common type of thyroid cancer, according to the Mayo Clinic. It most often affects people between 30 and 50 years old and is a growth of cells creating a lump on a gland at the base of the neck, just below the Adam’s apple.
Quickly after his diagnosis, Muckey was able to get surgery to have the mass removed. And since then, he’s back to focusing on the Tigers.
“I had surgery back in May to get the mass removed,” Muckey said. “And ever since then, I’ve been 100 percent cancer free. I haven’t missed a step along the way.”
Kansas City Kid
As a kid, Muckey cheered on the Tigers. Then he got a chance to join them when he was looking to continue his football career in college.
“I grew up in Kansas City, so I’m a Missouri guy,” Muckey said. “(I) grew up watching the Chiefs, my favorite football team. Mizzou, favorite football team. So I’ve been a Mizzou guy my entire life.”
That love of Missouri led Muckey to join the Tigers as a walk-on in 2021, fighting through the on-the-field adversity that every walk-on has to suffer through.
The odds are against you as a walk-on at a major university. But that never stopped Muckey. And he said all the fight it took to get to this point has been worth it.
“Every time I step out on the field wearing Mizzou across my chest is worth it,” Muckey said. “I love this university, I love playing here. I love Coach (Eliah Drinkwitz), I love all my coaches. Coach (Jacob) Peeler. I love the team. I love everyone in there. So being able to come in and work with the guys that I work with every day makes it worth it.
“Being a walk-on, the odds are stacked against you. It’s an uphill battle. But the guys here fight that battle with you. I’m not walking alone.”
Walking Together
In the same way Muckey’s teammates kept him from walking alone through the battle as a walk-on, he never walked alone through his cancer diagnosis.
“It was something that I was very fortunate to have the people around me that I did,” Muckey said. “I had amazing people here, amazing people over at Ellis Fischel Cancer Research Center. Everyone who was with me was with me every step of the way. It was a team effort.”
That family, the brotherhood that Missouri players are so found of talking about, has helped build Muckey into the Tigers’ special teams captain for the 2025 season. He was one of nine captains voted on by his teammates and announced this past week.
“I’ll tell you, man, it’s definitely the greatest honor in my life. It is,” Muckey said. “To be able to represent this school, this university, this football team, all my brothers downstairs, there’s nothing like it. … Being able to be in this position, when I walked on back in 2021, I knew that it was going to be gritty. I knew that it’s going to take a lot of hard work. So being in this situation now, words will never be able to describe it. It’s awesome.”
New Perspective
A brush with cancer will often bring a new perspective to a person’s life. And it has for Muckey as well.
“I’ve never sat out. I’ve never let anyone take me out. It was something I went through, but it’s something that definitely made me stronger, something that built my character up,” Muckey said. “I realized a lot about myself, I learned a lot of lessons in life. I’m not taking anything for granted ever again.”
Muckey said he is taking life day by day now that he is cancer free and focusing on enjoying every moment, especially those he gets to spend with his teammates and friends.
And overall, Muckey has taken a view of the diagnosis that is a bit unexpected.
“Everyone was there for me. Everyone was. There’s not a single person in this building who didn’t reach out and say something encouraging to me,” Muckey said. “I was, I was flooded with love, flooded with support. My teammates had my back. They knew all about it the whole time. It was, it was a like, I’ll say it again, a blessing in disguise.”
That blessing in disguise helped bring Muckey even closer with the team he has been a part of for four years.
“It really brought me and this team closer than we’ve ever been before,” Muckey said. “I’ve never felt more comfortable with my teammates than I did during this entire process, just because and coaching staff included. It was a tough battle for me just to deal with it, but I wasn’t alone. And they were with me the whole time.”
The Diagnosis
Along with his look at the diagnosis as a blessing in disguise, Muckey had another illness he sees in a new light because of how it worked out.
“So I had an infection on my tonsil that led me to go get a CT scan,” Muckey said. “And when I got the CT scan, that’s when they found the mass, the nodule on my thyroid. So that’s another one of those blessings in disguise. Because if I never had that infection of my tonsil, who knows?”
Muckey said he is thankful for the infection that might have saved him down the line. Papillary thyroid cancer can often spread to the lymph nodes in the neck, which can lead to issues throughout the body if it’s not caught early.
“It could have played out 10 years down the line, different story,” Muckey said. “I’m a great man of faith. I believe that God works in mysterious ways. And he was definitely then.”
Moving Forward
Now, Muckey will go into the 2025 season, his final as a Missouri Tiger, as the special teams captain. The walk-on has played in every game each of the past three years and recorded his first career catch in last year’s Music City Bowl.
He said one of the best parts of being named captain was getting to call his parents with the news.
“They’re super thrilled for me,” Muckey said. “They’ve been with me along every step of the way. So them seeing me in a position like this definitely feels good. But my parents are everything to me. I’m blessed to have my mom and my dad with me. … Like, man, I can’t thank them enough for what they’ve done for me, not even throughout the situation, but my entire life. I wouldn’t be who I am without them, for sure.”
As his walk-on journey nears its end, Muckey said he is thankful for the people he has been lucky enough to surround himself with. And he also couldn’t be more glad he gambled on himself.
“When you walk on somewhere, you’re betting on yourself, and I’ve bet on myself every single day,” he said. “And it’s paid off because of the people I have with me and the teammates I have.”
And not just the teammates, but the staff as well. Muckey said he’s thankful for all the coaches, especially the training staff who have helped him throughout the recovery process. But his head coach received an extra thank you.
“Coach Drink is awesome. Coach Drink is my guy,” Muckey said. “Throughout this process, he texted me like almost every day. Checking on me, seeing how I’m doing and giving me words of encouragement. He was one of the biggest leaders helping me through it. He kept my emotions in line, and I can’t thank him enough for that and everything else he’s ever done for me.”
