Facing Goliath together

Alec Santelman ’30 committed to playing football at Bethel and expected the next few months to be filled with the fun and excitement of wrapping up his senior year of high school and looking ahead to college. But everything changed on January 10, 2025. 

Santelman was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma. The cancer was caught early and localized to a soft tissue tumor near his femur. Still, treatment would be demanding: 10 months of intensive chemotherapy, eight weeks of radiation at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, and numerous surgeries.

For a while, playing football took a backseat. “My biggest fear was when I didn’t know how advanced or treatable my cancer was—I didn’t know how long I would live,” Santelman says. “My fears began to fade, though, when I realized that, no matter what happened, God was with me.”

Rewind 20 years. Another future Bethel football player faced a remarkably similar experience. Logan Flannery ’11 was a three-sport athlete at Lakeville South High School when he found a lump under his left arm during his junior football season. Initial testing suggested it wasn’t cancer, so he continued playing football and basketball. But when doctors later removed the swollen lymph node, further testing revealed it was cancer—Burkitt lymphoma. Near the end of his junior year, Flannery abruptly left school to begin four months of chemotherapy and radiation.

At 17, Flannery struggled to fully comprehend the diagnosis. His mind kept returning to sports. “My whole concern was like, ‘OK, well, I have this diagnosis of cancer. But when can I go back to normal life and playing football?’” Flannery says. “I think it’s the same for a lot of kids who go through pediatric cancer—they get pulled out of their normal life, and they just want to get back to feeling normal again.”

For Flannery, normal meant getting back to his teammates and competing. When he was home between treatments, he tried to participate in summer football training. He entered remission shortly before practice began for his senior season and returned to the field despite the toll treatment had taken on his body. Chemotherapy and radiation had cost him muscle mass, weight, strength, and mobility. But Flannery kept working. As the season progressed, he began to feel like himself again, and his team at Lakeville South eventually advanced to the state championship game.

“I was happy I could just get back and go out and play football again,” Flannery says. “My passion—and a lot of my identity—was being an athlete.” That season also kept alive his hope of playing college football.

Finding Bethel

Flannery initially considered other schools where he could play college football, but none felt like the right fit. His family knew then-Bethel head football coach Steve Johnson, and with faith central to his family, he decided to give Bethel a closer look.

After spending time with Johnson and the team, something clicked. “The football was there, the faith aspect was there,” Flannery says. “It was close to home, but far enough away from home where I still felt like I was having that college experience.”

He graduated from Bethel in 2011, but the relationships he formed through the football program continued long after his playing days. “It’s such a tight-knit group of guys,” Flannery says. “My college teammates are still some of my best friends, and some were even in my wedding.” At Bethel it wasn’t just about winning, he recalls. Coaches challenged him and his teammates to consider the men they were becoming and the husbands, fathers, and followers of Christ they hoped to be.

Santelman found himself drawn to Bethel for some of the same reasons. The Plymouth, Minnesota, native grew up with strong Bethel connections. His older brother, Eli Santelman ’25, is a Bethel graduate, as is his mother, Kristi Piehl ’97, who currently serves on Bethel’s Board of Trustees. Santelman wanted to continue playing football, but he also wanted his college experience to be grounded in faith and community. He committed to Bethel just months before his cancer diagnosis.

“I chose Bethel because I wanted to keep playing football after high school, and I wanted a faith-based experience,” Santelman says. “I also wanted to be part of the awesome community I got to know through my brother and mom.” His diagnosis didn’t change that plan. Instead, it made starting at Bethel and getting back on the field part of his motivation during treatment. Ultimately, his treatment delayed his start at Bethel by just one semester.

A reason to keep fighting

Because his cancer had been caught early, Santelman’s doctors told him playing football again was possible, but getting there would require work. As treatment progressed, he began each day weighing the things he could and couldn’t control. 

“Was I going to get out of bed and make healthy choices about food and exercise?” Santelman says. “I couldn’t control cancer, but I could control my attitude and my choices. I knew every healthy decision would help me recover faster and return to athletics.”

He also wrestled with the question “Why me?” Eventually, Santelman began looking at the diagnosis as an opportunity to make a difference. “I’d never wish the battle that I went through on anyone else, especially little kids who can’t understand what’s happening. But cancer made me better,” he says. “I’ve always had faith that God has a plan for me, and I held onto that hope throughout treatment.”

With time, Flannery’s perspective on his diagnosis and experience changed into something similar. When Flannery was younger, he didn’t want cancer to define him. He wanted people to see him as an athlete, not as “the cancer kid.” But after college, parents began reaching out because their children were facing cancer and hoped to return to sports. They’d ask if he could talk to their son or daughter—perhaps offering some hope and inspiration. Flannery began to understand that the story he once wanted to put behind him could have a bigger purpose.

“I realized that my experience can benefit others,” Flannery says. One particular conversation in 2019 was pivotal. He met with a young Lakeville South baseball player who had been diagnosed with cancer and walked away knowing he wanted—needed—to do more!

“I just came away from that interaction being like, ‘I’ve got to do this,’” he says. And from that conviction came The Goliath Project.

Facing Goliath

Flannery and his wife, Taylor (Sheley) ’12, a former Bethel basketball player, co-founded The Goliath Project to help young cancer survivors return to the sports and activities they love. The organization’s name reflects both their Christian faith and the challenge facing the athletes they serve. “These kids are David, and cancer is Goliath standing in their way—they have to overcome and defeat it,” Flannery says.

Although cancer treatment can save lives, it can also leave young athletes far from the physical condition needed to return to competition. Flannery experienced that firsthand. Once treatment ends and a patient is medically cleared, there can still be a gap between being healthy and being ready to compete.

That’s the gap The Goliath Project hopes to fill. The nonprofit provides resources based on each athlete’s individual needs, including personal training, gym equipment, nutrition support, and sports psychology services. It has funded specialized training, golf equipment, a treadmill, and even synthetic ice that allowed a hockey player—too young for weightlifting and training—to practice in his garage.

What began by helping a few Minnesota athletes has expanded as families from across the country have discovered the organization. And Bethel connections continue to run through the nonprofit. In addition to Logan and Taylor Flannery, Bethel football alumni Billy Morgan ’12 and Ben Bjork ’14 serve on its board, and another Bethel graduate, Kaitlyn Langston ’13, serves as director. But one of The Goliath Project’s newest Bethel connections happened by accident.

A surprise connection

A physical therapist at Children’s Minnesota told Santelman about The Goliath Project and nominated him for support. Neither Santelman nor the organization initially realized they shared a Bethel connection.

“We didn’t realize there was a Bethel connection until the awesome team at the Goliath Project reached out to me after reading my nomination,” Santelman says.

When Flannery learned Santelman was headed to Bethel to play football, the parallels became hard to miss. Both had faced cancer near the end of high school. Both were football players determined to return to their sport. Both chose Bethel. And both found that returning to athletics required more than simply finishing treatment. By the time Santelman connected with The Goliath Project, he already had access to training through Bethel football. So the organization looked for another way to encourage him.

The answer came in a pair of cleats.

The Goliath Project worked with Tara Aiken, a self-taught professional chalk artist, muralist, and sneaker artist based in Minneapolis. She created custom cleats for Santelman, who helped select their design. He chose Superman because he admires what the character stands for. He also wanted Bethel colors, a yellow ribbon to raise awareness of Ewing sarcoma, and The Goliath Project logo. “The final product surprised me,” Santelman says. “It blew my expectations away!” 

But the cleats represented more than new football gear. “Their support meant so much to me, and it inspired me to work hard to get back on the field and wear the cleats they gifted me,” he says.

Back to the field

Today, Santelman is studying exercise science with a minor in business and plans to attend graduate school for physical therapy. He plays tight end for the Royals, and his recovery continues. Radiation left him with a strength deficiency in his right quadriceps, and he is also working through the effects of an unrelated knee surgery that he underwent a year before his diagnosis. But through it all, he's been surrounded by a football community that was in his corner even before he arrived on campus, and hasn't left since.

“My football team and coaches are a very supportive community,” Santelman says. His coaches checked in on him numerous times throughout treatment. For Flannery, that kind of support is another similarity between his story and Santelman’s. Years after his own time in a Bethel football uniform, Flannery still describes the community he had with his teammates and coaches as a brotherhood that cares about who players become on and off the field.

Now, through The Goliath Project, he’s helping another Royal pursue the same goal he had: getting back to the game he loves.