SC Super Bowl champion honored at Trident Medical after beating cancer

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) – A South Carolina native and two-time Super Bowl champion celebrated a life win recently.

Jim Stuckey is cancer-free after an extensive battle with head and neck cancer or oropharynx squamous cell carcinoma. To celebrate Stuckey’s latest victory, Trident Medical Center held a red-carpet celebration Monday for the Clemson All-American.

With doctors and Stuckey’s care team members surrounding him, he walked the red carpet to rounds of applause this afternoon for his recent triumph.

“This young man has been such an inspiring human to all of us,” said Dr. Terry Day, a head and neck cancer specialist. “And he not only battled on the football field, but he battled and beat cancer.”

After using the same grit that got him two rings with the San Francisco 49ers, now he has fought for more time to spend with his loved ones.

While he has beat the illness, Stuckey is still healing from a surgery where doctors had to rebuild a large section of the back of his throat.

Unable to speak for long periods of time, Stuckey asked his trusted caretaker, Sara Jasper, for help speaking the words he wrote for the ceremony.

“Let me tell you. I know what first-class looks like, and Trident and Head and Neck Cancer Specialists, along with the team at the hospital, are world champions,” Stuckey wrote. “I congratulate you guys and thank you for saving my life.”

Dr. Day also read a letter former 49ers Public Relations Director Jerry Walker sent.

“Some of the best news I’ve heard recently are the two simple words cancer survivor,” Walker wrote. “I got goosebumps when I first read them, and I thank God for you.”

While the South Carolina Hall of Famer’s talent on the field has etched his name in football history, his tenacity has allowed him to win the game of life.

April is National Head and Neck Cancer Awareness Month.  Officials estimate that in 2025, nearly 70,000 new cases of head and neck cancer will be diagnosed.