29 - The Dallas Cowboys are Detecting Cancer Early

Tad Carper, Senior VP of Communications for the Dallas Cowboys, shares how a multi-cancer early detection (MCED) screening unexpectedly revealed a cancer signal for head and neck cancer-despite experiencing no symptoms. The test, sponsored for the team's assistant coaches by quarterback Dak Prescott's foundation, Faith Fight Finish, was the first step toward Tad's stage two cancer diagnosis. Tad reflects on the emotional and mental impact of his diagnosis, the importance of early detection, and how the experience reshaped his values-deepening his appreciation for life, relationships, and the power of proactive health care. His story highlights the critical role of accessibility, awareness, and advocacy in cancer detection, and his commitment to "paying it forward" by helping others take early action in their own health journeys.

[Susanna] Welcome to The Cancer SIGNAL, a podcast presented by GRAIL, where we share the stories behind multi-cancer early detection testing. I am your host, Susanna Quinn. Today we welcome Tad Carper, Senior Vice President of Communications for the Dallas Cowboys. Tad had the opportunity to take a multi-cancer early detection test, which led to a surprising cancer diagnosis. He's joining us today to share his experience. Welcome to The Cancer SIGNAL, Tad.

[Tad] It's great to be with you, Susanna. Just thrilled to be here and look forward to talking all about this.

[Susanna] Excellent. We are delighted to have you here. And as I mentioned, it's the first time my 13-year-old son has been excited about the podcast. He's a big football fan.

[Tad] Well, whatever draws attention to this, I'm all for-and fans, non-fans, and anybody that can potentially be impacted.

[Susanna] Excellent. So, Tad, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, where you're from, and what your role is with the Cowboys?

[Tad] Sure. I grew up in a small little town in West Virginia, in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia, about an hour outside of Washington, D.C. Was just a sports person my entire life-playing sports, interested in sports, you know, from dawn till dusk-and decided that was what I would have to do professionally when it came time to pick a career path to pursue. And graduated, had a number of business jobs, thoroughly unmotivated by it, and came full circle that I'd have to go back and get my master's in sports administration, which was rare back then. I'm 62. And so back in my 20s, those sports management degrees were few and far between in places that offered them. Ended up getting my master's in sports management from the University of Richmond-the Spiders-and did some internships, worked in a number of capacities with teams and venues and festivals and everything, sports and entertainment. And had the good fortune to go to work for the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA and was there for 22 years throughout the LeBron James era in Cleveland, won a ring there in 2016. Did a lot of things that not too many people have the good fortune to be involved with, but then decided it was time to do something else. And Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys came calling, and had the opportunity to come down and lead the communications and public relations area of the business for the Dallas Cowboys, and did that about three years ago, and along the way, got to work with Dak Prescott. And that's the beginning of the rest of the story, so to speak.

[Susanna] Before your cancer experience, had you thought much about cancer? Had anybody close to you been impacted by cancer?

[Tad] No, really not. Had very little family history involved with cancer. Didn't give it a lot of thought myself. The interesting thing, if you work in sports-and the NFL included-the NFL has a great program every year called Crucial Catch, focused on trying to find cancer, test for cancer. And that's something that was part of my professional life, but never really something that I gave too much thought to on a personal level, and felt fine.

[Susanna] That is a really interesting story about how you got your career started. So we are here today to talk about cancer, which is not a great topic, but yours is a really good and teachable story.

[Susanna] So Tad, tell us how you happened to take the Galleri test.

[Tad] So really, just a coincidental kind of "hand of God" kind of moment there. We were at training camp last summer, so the summer of 2024, out in Oxnard, California. The Cowboys do our training camp every year in California. So we're out there for about a month, and a lot of team-building exercises, a lot of bonding goes on, and we're together for about a month. And our head coach at the time, Mike McCarthy, and Dak had a conversation regarding wanting to do something. Dak had wanted to do something for the assistant coaches. Dak Prescott is the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys, and also the NFL Walter Payton Man of the Year, which is considered the NFL's highest honor. And Dak was, at the time, the current NFL Walter Payton Man of the Year, and much of that attributable to his work with his own foundation-his Faith Fight Finish Foundation-that focuses on several pillars, one of which is cancer detection. Dak lost his mother to cancer that could have been prevented with early detection. And so, Dak and the coach, Mike McCarthy, had a conversation-what they wanted to do to help support our assistant coaches. And decided that they would implement a cancer testing program. And GRAIL to the rescue, and brought in some doctors from Dak's healthcare partner in Louisiana, where Dak is from-Ochsner Health-and administered the Galleri test to all of the assistant coaches. Dak-being that I work very closely with Dak as the PR head for the Cowboys-and I have a very, very tight relationship. And he, that morning, invited me in with his foundation to go ahead and take the test, if I wanted to. It was completely optional.

[Susanna] That's incredible, really-so inspiring that a public figure would take up an issue like early detection, because so many people's lives are impacted by cancer. So, what were your thoughts and expectations about taking the test? It sounds like it was sort of last-minute. Did you have any anxiety about it, or any expectations?

[Tad] No, and it was early, it was 7 a.m. So up out of bed, I get the text and say, "Hey, come on over if you want to," and I said, "Sure, why not?" And just walked in, and again, you're amongst a team of people that you're accustomed to being around, and you spend a lot of time with, especially at training camp, they're together at our complex out there, and just felt like it was important to at least listen to what was going on. And really, be aware of what Dak was doing for our assistant coaches. That was really the top-of-mind for me, more so than the test itself, was learning about the technology-about the Galleri test-which was really eye-opening to understand the power that this test has to uncover. And as Dak and his foundation like to say, "See the unseen." And that's exactly what it did with me. But, you know, I had no anxiety about it. I know that's something that a lot of men struggle with in particular, and shame on us for being that way and having some hesitancy to take care of ourselves and get tested. That's one of my primary motivators moving forward, is to try to normalize the thinking behind getting tested and taking care of yourself. And for a lot of people, that's "I don't want to go to the dentist." But for many people, it's "I don't want to get tested for things and for illness," and specifically colonoscopies or other cancer detection. And that's something we've got to get over and beyond.

[Susanna] Did you have any symptoms before taking the test?

[Tad] No. And that's really the remarkable thing about this, is, getting tested when you feel fine is exactly the right time to get tested. And quite often we default to the thinking that, you know, when something starts feeling kind of strange, that's when it's time to get tested. No, that's not the time. Well, that's the time to get tested for sure, but really, the best time to get tested is when you feel fine. And creating that sort of normal cadence of being tested and getting results that are actionable, and [which] you can react to, is really the best thing about this. It's, you know, having no symptoms and feeling fine, or you might have something that you attribute to something else. You know, if you're a man and you're working out and you're around in an active environment, you can get bumps and bruises and aches and pains that you might attribute to something else. But you really need to think through the possibility of, as you get older-especially when you hit 40, then 50, then 60-you know, the time when you feel good is exactly the right time to get tested.

[Susanna] What were your initial feelings and your thoughts when they told you that you had a cancer signal origin in either your head or your neck?

[Tad] Well, first of all, I hadn't thought about it. So we came back from camp, and because this was right at the tail-end of camp. And I got a phone call just out of the blue, and it was the doctor from Ochsner. And he said, "Hey, you know, just want to let you know we got a Signal back for head and neck cancer on you." And everything's immediately slowed down. It was like a slow-motion moment. And I was sitting in my office that overlooks our practice field, and processing, you know, the words coming out of his mouth. And then thinking through, "Wow, this is, you know-my life is about to change in a big way." It was a relatively short phone call. Dr. Matrana, he was phenomenal in terms of helping me understand what needed to happen next, and calling my primary care, getting scans set up across the street where, you know, time and time again, you know, I've helped in the process with our players needing to go over and get MRIs and scans and things from a health perspective. But this time it was me, and understanding that I was going to need to go through that process myself. And I'm really a believer, a strong believer in manifesting positive thinking and thinking about positive outcomes. And immediately that kicked in, thankfully, as well as my faith, which is really important to me. But, you know, the rest of that day was really a kind of a slow-motion, out-of-body kind of existence. And we were just getting ready to head into the start of the season at that point, and knew that, you know, I was going to need to go through a process. And I was about to get underway with that.

[Susanna] I remember when I was given my diagnosis. After the shock wore off, I went out and played tennis because I thought, "If I can play tennis, I'm not going to die soon."

[Tad] Right.

[Susanna] You said in a previous interview that your diagnosis precipitated a dangerous introspection, which I thought was fascinating. Can you elaborate a little bit on that?

[Tad] Well, sure. And, you know, I think any time you contemplate your own mortality-which is not something I recommend, but in these moments, your natural instinct is to do that-so you're sitting around contemplating your own mortality, and that requires or comes along with some dangerous levels of introspection. And you begin to question all sorts of things. You think about, you know, what's ahead. You think about what's behind, too. And you take a kind of full-life inventory in a lot of different ways, not only on a personal level, on a professional level, with friends and family, and those that are your loved ones. And you kind of organize things, I think, which is what I did. And whether that's a precursor to preparing yourself for what's ahead and what could happen. And there's a fine line between keeping that positive mentality and understanding how positive thinking and that mentality can impact you in a very real way, in terms of your physical health and your body's response to what's going on inside of you. But at the same time, keeping it real and being able to live with the reality of what is going on inside of you and how that progresses. And there was a lot that I didn't know. It was unknown. I still hadn't had a biopsy yet. I didn't know the extent of what was going on. I didn't know immediately what stage one, stage two, stage four, stage, you know, any of that was at that point. And really, I had and acted on the natural instinct to walk into the restroom at work, look in the mirror, and get my phone out with the light on it, and try to look, you know-can I see what this is, you know, what's going on? And I'm feeling, you know, all over. And so we didn't know what we didn't know at that time. So that was still to come.

[Susanna] So at this point, who did you talk to? Who did you first tell about this cancer?

[Tad] Yeah, so I didn't tell anybody. I kept it inside and I didn't talk to anybody about it. When my scan got scheduled, and I knew the result of the scan came back and said, "Yeah, you've got a tumor in your throat." And I knew it was time. And the first person I told was Dak, and felt like that was the right thing to do. So I told Dak. He responded exactly like I thought he would, you know. We're down, you know, in a conference room downstairs outside of our locker room, hugging it up, and he's telling me, "We got it. I know we got it." You know, "It's exactly why we do this. You know, this is going to be all right. We're going to beat this. It's going to be okay." And we had just finished a production call for our national TV broadcast that week coming up, and he was getting ready to walk out of the conference room-and I said, "Hey, I got one more thing, and it's kind of a big thing. And just so you know, that test that you arranged and we did out in training camp, you know, delivered a response back." And, you know, so that was, it was a special thing, you know, with him and his response again. Fed into the positive, "let's do this," you know, kind of mentality that I think is so helpful when people are facing something like this. So he was the only person that I told for quite some time. I eventually then told our head coach, Mike McCarthy, who was, you know, again, involved in making this happen. And I did nothing to earn this, you know, I was completely benefiting from their generosity and their thinking in trying to help our coaches. And then eventually I told a staff member, my right hand on my staff, because I was going to have to start heading to some other tests and appointments out of the office. It was going to eat into the schedule, you know. But most of all, I didn't tell my wife. I didn't tell my children. I didn't tell my wife. I didn't want them to have to be burdened with it until they had to. And quite frankly-a funny story-when I finally told my wife about this, you know, she understood, she was really good about it. She understood that, you know, I didn't want her to worry, you know, when it was going to do no good. She said, "But I could have been praying the whole time," which is a very good point. But I said, "Well, you got plenty of time for that." And the reason I told her was basically I needed a ride home from the biopsy that I had to have. And so she was brought into the loop then and was great about it. You know, I told her right then that night, I said, "This is going to be the best thing that ever happened to us." And it has been, it has been the best thing that ever happened to us.

[Susanna] Well, your sense of gratitude must be overwhelming, as well as it must have been tremendously fulfilling for Dak to have provided this and to have you find out early, early enough to take action. It's really tremendous. And, you know, you work with all of these athletes that have platforms, and they have parents and grandparents and brothers and sisters and friends and people whose lives will be touched by cancer. So being able to highlight, you know, the value of multi-cancer early detection tests is amazing. You had to go through this really challenging, difficult experience. But the silver lining is that, you know, you have a platform to share your experience and teach others. Can you walk us through what your treatment plan was?

[Tad] Yeah, sure. In addition to the mental aspects of this, the treatment then became, "Okay, I'm going to undergo surgery for removal." I was fortunate enough to have caught it early enough, stage two. They went in and we scheduled surgery. The surgery was largely successful. The tumor removal was successful. The perimeter was entirely negative. But the cancer cells had accumulated around one of my lymph nodes. They had not become embedded yet, but they were there. And so the removal, the neck dissection that occurred then to scrape lymph nodes and around tissue nerve endings around my neck, all the way down from up here down to my shoulder, took place. And the pathology came back saying, yeah, he could probably get away with not doing radiation. But the fact that it was starting to spread, and that it attached to one of the lymph nodes, tells us we need to do radiation. So we're going to do five weeks of radiation. Before the radiation can take place because of the focus being around my mouth, my jaw, my neck area, I had to go to the dentist. They said, "You've got to get all your dental work in line, because we can't have anything happen that requires dental work when you're undergoing this. Because the radiation itself is going to impact your jaw, your teeth, and around your mouth significantly and you got to get that taken care of." I went. It had been a while. Again, typical guy hadn't gone to the dentist, you know, as he should, and I figured, yeah, they're probably going to have to pull two teeth or, you know, something. Well, I went in and found out that I had to have six teeth removed, and that I was already four teeth down. So they pulled six more out. So now I'm down 10 teeth, and which I got all of them done over the course of a two-week period. Then I had to wait for that to heal and recover enough. Went back, kept on going back to my radiation doctor and having him check me for being able to start the radiation as soon as we could-and had to delay another week, and then push back another week. And then, you know, so we didn't start for a while, and getting through that was tough. And finally got to the point where we could start the radiation. Anybody that's been through radiation knows that that's no fun. The silver lining was I didn't need chemo on top of it. And I've talked to a lot of people that did. And I only had to have radiation. And again, thankfully, because we caught it on the early side, it reduced what I had to go through. And we started the radiation, you know-first week, a breeze. Second, third, no problem. You get into that fourth, fifth. And then for the two or three weeks after radiation, it's bad. And it significantly impacted what I could eat, what I could get down. The pain management part of it, the effects on your lips, your teeth, your mouth in general-I lost almost 20 pounds in the process. The goal, I was told, was to keep from having to insert a tube into my stomach to feed me. So I did everything I could to, you know-protein shakes. Our team nutritionist and health science people with the Cowboys were tremendous. You know, they started to load me up with smoothies and protein shakes and things of that nature to just keep me going. And that was, you know, again, just good fortune on my part. The next part of it was, how do I, you know, continue working? And this actually lined up with a bye week in our schedule. So I ended up benefiting from having a bye week where we didn't play. And then the next week after that, we were on the road in San Francisco for Sunday Night Football. And I've known Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth, the announcers for Sunday Night Football, for years and years. I used to work with Mike Tirico in the NBA back when Mike was broadcasting the NBA games too. And I had not seen Dak since the surgery. Dak and I have been texting, talking, you know, but I hadn't actually seen him. And we got on one of the TV production calls in advance of the game that week. And Tirico and Collinsworth and the producers for NBC are on the call, and it's a Zoom call. So it's a video call. And Dak's on, and I jump on from home, and Dak and I, you know, see each other. And we're, you know, "Hey, man, what's going on?" You know, we're mucking it up and having a fun time. And Tirico and Collinsworth are looking at it saying, "What's going on here?" "And why are you guys reacting this way?" And so Dak is like, "TC, if you want to tell them, you know, I'll share too." And so we told them the whole story of what had happened. And Mike Tirico being the human being-there is no finer human being and broadcaster in sports than Tirico. And they all agreed, "Hey, if you guys are okay with this, we'll tell 25 million people on Sunday Night Football this Sunday night about this. And hopefully it'll motivate somebody to go get tested and take early detection more seriously." And so I said, "Well, let me talk to my wife. I want to, you know, make sure." And Dak's like, "Let's do it." And I talked to Dak after the call was over and said "I'm all for it." So that was the beginning where we sort of let the cat out of the bag. We told 24 million people watching that broadcast on Sunday Night Football that night. Fox came back and had our Thanksgiving game, and Erin Andrews and that crew that I've been friends with for years surprised me and did the same thing, told another 40 million people. And for me, there had to be a willingness to do that, because for me to sort of crawl in a cave and not want to share my personal situation would have been hypocritical. Because I spent half my life encouraging others to tell their story, to share their story. Athletes, coaches, other business leaders. And then for me to have that moment, and crawl in a cave and not be willing to share, would have been hypocritical. So I wanted to pay it forward, because I benefited from something that I had no part in making happen. And I was just fortunate, I was blessed to be on the receiving end of the test. And now, you know, I wanted to hopefully impact some others, to motivate them to make it normal, get tested.

[Susanna] It's incredibly generous of you to use your platform to highlight the importance of early detection testing. And I'm so inspired by Dak taking up the cause. I am just so thrilled to talk with you about this today. I did when you were talking about sports and what you do is so important. When I was going through my five months of chemotherapy where, you know, I had TPN, I had intravenous nutrition, I lost about 40 pounds. The one thing that I would get out of bed and come downstairs and do is watch the Washington Nationals games.

[Tad] Oh, wow. Yeah.

[Susanna] It was incredible. It really got me through. And I remember my husband, you know, saying, "When you're, you know, when you're all through this, are you still going to watch baseball with me?" And I did. But it was just-you know, I loved the players, and I don't know, there was something about it. It was almost meditative. On the nights when there weren't Washington Nationals games, I would go to bed at six o'clock.

[Tad] Sure. No, it's and, you know, everybody that works in sports-and I've worked in sports for so long now that it's my normal, you know. And it's my kids' normal. They grew up in it, you know, that my son grew up rebounding for LeBron James and Shaquille O'Neal.

[Susanna] So tell us, Tad, how is your health today?

[Tad] So I feel good. I'm about two months out of radiation now, and there's some side effects that will stick with me for a while-probably hair loss. I used to have a full beard and down the neck, and in the back. And my mouth is going to probably take over a year to recover. Just-I have I have an upper and lower partial that has 10 teeth in it, which is kind of weird. I have an extreme sensitivity to spice and flavor, you know, that isn't quite right. But I've kept the weight off. I feel good. I have good energy that has come back. All of the main things are trending really, really well-our scans have come back since then, I've had two scans that have all come back clear. I'll have another right before we head to training camp in July.

[Susanna] That's just tremendous. You really are. It's such a recent experience for you. Just having completed radiation a few months ago, you know, I've found that cancer was probably my biggest challenge. But some of the most incredible blessings have come out of it, not just in terms of personal choice and prioritizing and figuring out how I want to live my life, and with whom I want to spend my time, and what I want to do. How do you feel when you reflect on this experience? I mean, you've talked quite a bit about it, but, you know, moving forward, have your priorities changed? Do you have any goals or significant aspirations that have come out as a result of this?

[Tad] A hundred percent. When I take inventory of how I value relationships, the patience that I have in not only myself, but other people now, the ability to prioritize appropriately, more appropriately with respect to family and work-life balance, the appreciation and respect that I have for every day and what I'm able to do, what I'm blessed to be able to walk into every day here at work and then conversely at home. And those appreciations and having the ability to put things in perspective-I think we all hear stories and it causes us to step back and say, "Wow, that helps put things in perspective." And understanding that I am that perspective now, and that this story potentially is that perspective, allows me to have a better self-awareness that maybe I didn't have before. And again, the ability to have a lot of humility and being able to understand the value and the work that goes into this. Even, you know, talking to the doctors, my surgeon, Dr. Britt at Baylor, Scott and White, the doctors at Ochsner. People like Dak, others, the work that they do. The fact that, you know, I walk into work and sometimes, you know, as lucky as I am to do what I do, you can take it for granted, you can become desensitized to it, and you have to walk in every day, keeping that at bay, and understanding how lucky and fortunate and blessed you are to be in the position you're in. And the same thing for everybody at GRAIL. I tend to work every day on things that impact the fabric of people's lives. You know, football and sports and entertainment impacts, you know, the fabric of life for a lot of different people, young and old alike. And you think about what everybody at GRAIL does. They come into work and they impact life itself, people and health and relationships that are spread across generations of people are impacted by the work that GRAIL is doing. And the Galleri test itself has the potential to do that. And so being able to walk in to work, understanding that you're going to impact somebody's life in such a deep and meaningful way should be rewarding, and something that we have to remind ourselves of every day. And this is really a fun part of our lives that we get to enjoy together. And let's never lose sight of that, because it is the escape for so many people and for most people. And that's something that we always have to respect and value in what we do, because you can sort of get lost. Because I get lost thinking about, "Oh, my God, the impact that these doctors and these people with GRAIL that are developing this technology…." And right now, that's what really matters in life. You know, that's these people, you know, that's who's really doing wonderful things in the world. And what I do, you know, that's nothing, you know. And at the end of the day, though, you hear, you know, people like yourself talking about the impact that it has on their life, and especially during tough times.

[Susanna] Thank you so much, Tad. It's really been a pleasure talking to you and hearing your story. And we're so appreciative for you to make the time to come and speak with us today.

[Tad] Well, it's my pleasure. And like I say, I try to pay it forward, and I've benefited from something that I had no hand in causing to happen. And I want to always remain grateful, you know, for that. Grateful to Dak, grateful to Coach McCarthy, grateful to GRAIL, and grateful to you for helping share this story as well. And we just want to continue the momentum and impact as many as we can.

[Susanna] Thank you. Thank you for joining us today. Listeners, be sure to visit GRAIL's YouTube channel to watch this episode there. We will link it in the show notes for this episode. This is The Cancer SIGNAL presented by GRAIL. Please subscribe so you don't miss an episode, and thank you for listening.

VoiceOver
Based on a clinical study of people ages 50 to 79 around 1% are expected to receive a cancer signal detected result, which includes predicted cancer signal origins. After diagnostic evaluation, around 40% of people are expected to have a confirmed cancer diagnosis. The Galleri test is prescription only. The Galleri test is recommended for use in adults with an elevated risk for cancer, such as those age 50 or older. It is not recommended for individuals who are pregnant, 21 years or younger, or undergoing active cancer treatment. Galleri should be used in addition to routine cancer screening. Galleri does not detect a signal for all cancers. False positive and false negative results do occur. For more information, including important safety information, please visit galleri.com.

Important Safety Information
The Galleri test is recommended for use in adults with an elevated risk for cancer, such as those age 50 or older. The test does not detect all cancers and should be used in addition to routine cancer screening tests recommended by a healthcare provider. The Galleri test is intended to detect cancer signals and predict where in the body the cancer signal is located. Use of the test is not recommended in individuals who are pregnant, 21 years old or younger, or undergoing active cancer treatment. Results should be interpreted by a healthcare provider in the context of medical history, clinical signs, and symptoms. A test result of No Cancer Signal Detected does not rule out cancer. A test result of Cancer Signal Detected requires confirmatory diagnostic evaluation by medically established procedures (e.g., imaging) to confirm cancer. If cancer is not confirmed with further testing, it could mean that cancer is not present or testing was insufficient to detect cancer, including due to the cancer being located in a different part of the body. False positive (a cancer signal detected when cancer is not present) and false negative (a cancer signal not detected when cancer is present) test results do occur. Rx only.

Laboratory/Test Information
The GRAIL clinical laboratory is certified under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988 (CLIA) and accredited by the College of American Pathologists. The Galleri test was developed - and its performance characteristics were determined - by GRAIL. The Galleri test has not been cleared or approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The GRAIL clinical laboratory is regulated under CLIA to perform high-complexity testing. The Galleri test is intended for clinical purposes.