Football was part of life.
The Neffs were "huge" fans of the sport, from the time they lived in Pennsylvania to their move to Arizona in 2001. Stephen Neff Sr. and his son Steve Jr., a teen at the time, latched on to the Cardinals and got season tickets. They watched games at Sun Devil Stadium, they moved as fans to State Farm Stadium. They saw the NFC Championship win in person during the 2008 season.
A quarter century of bonding over their team.
But as the NFL celebrates its Crucial Catch month in October and cancer survivors and patients are honored, the Neffs take even more from their connection to the Cardinals and the game. Steve Jr. arrived in Arizona just as he learned he had testicular cancer, a devastating turn for a wrestler who had college scholarship hopes.
His father, nearly 20 years later, was diagnosed with internal melanoma and given six months to live.
Here they are, in 2026, having both beat the disease back, watching their Cardinals. Dad, 67, gets to spend time with son, 42, who long ago built his own life with his own family.
"Since we are Arizona natives, essentially," Steve Jr. said, "it's hard not to be Cardinals fans."
That they are both here is their story. Living life is part of their football.
THAT THE NEFFS ended up in Arizona was because of Stephanie Neff, Steve Jr.'s younger sister and burgeoning gymnast. In September of 2001, she was on track to potentially make the 2004 Olympic team.
Such high-level commitment meant then-12-year-old Stephanie needed to move to Arizona to train. Steve Jr. was already an accomplished wrestler for a powerhouse high school in Pennsylvania. Neff Sr. and his wife made the hard decision that he would remain in Pennsylvania with his son, and his wife would go to Arizona with Stephanie.
"Then, one day, out of the clear blue, Stevie comes up to me and says, 'Dad, if we need to move for Steffi we need to move. I can wrestle anywhere,'" Steve Sr. said.
"My sister had one opportunity for the Olympic team," Steve Jr. said. "We could figure it out."
Steve Sr. talked to five different wrestling coaches at high schools, determined to have Steve Jr. find his way to the best possible situation. They ended up at Red Mountain in Mesa. It almost became meaningless.
Right before the family was about to move, Steve Jr. found a lump on his left testicle. The doctor in Pennsylvania believed it was a hydrocele, a common wrestling malady where fluid fills a sac in the scrotum, causing swelling.
Six months later, the testicle had gotten hard and twice the size. He had cancer.
"They were telling me I was never going to wrestle again," Steve Jr. said.
His father was a wreck.
"My little boy," Steve Sr. said. "It wasn't until the doctor took me into his office and said, 'You need to be there to support your son.' I was a mess. That 'C word' is nasty."
At 17, going into his final year of high school, Junior wasn't a wreck. He was determined to not let it derail him. As it turned out, he's determined not to let anything derail him. As the cancer went into remission following extensive surgery, Junior was undefeated in his last year of high school, losing only when he dislocated his shoulder in the state semifinals.
He was named Red Mountain's 2003 Male Athlete of the Year. He twice swept the Grand Canyon State games at his weight class in collegiate style, Greco-Roman, and freestyle, on either side of his diagnosis. He had scholarship offers, but chose to stay home and walk on at Arizona State, a school with its share of high-level wrestling history.
That was also where Steve Jr. met Pat Tillman.
STEVE NEFF JR. and Pat Tillman interacted only briefly. It was near the end of 2003, when Tillman was back in Arizona during leave and right before his fateful final deployment to the Middle East.
Junior had long considered joining the military. He was in ROTC at ASU, but until he was cancer-free for a few years, he wasn't eligible to join. He saw Tillman working out, and took the chance to ask the former Cardinals safety what it meant to be in the Rangers.
Tillman, the most famous Ranger there was, gave him the job description.
"It sounded like something I wanted to do," Steve Jr. said.
He was about to turn 22 in July of 2005, cancer-free since February of 2002, and was sitting in an English class at ASU when he paused during an assignment and wondered internally, "What am I doing here?" Steve Jr. packed up, drove to the recruiting office, and told them he wanted to enlist with the infantry with a path to join the Rangers.
"I walked away from everything," he said.
The Cardinals fan, the Tillman fan, was going to be a Ranger.
IN 2019, Steve Sr. got sick. Doctors thought it was a pancreas issue. Subsequent visits for his health led to more blood tests. And one day early in 2020, the long-time Federal Express supervisor got a phone call after he had flown back to Pennsylvania to help onboard a new employee.
His doctor wanted to know where he was. Steve Sr. told him.
"You never heard a doctor curse so much," he said.
His blood count was so low, suffering a medical emergency while flying was a real possibility. They wanted Steve Sr. to undergo surgery in Pennsylvania. Steve said no. So he had to go to the hospital for multiple transfusions, trying to get his blood count just high enough to get back to the desert.
Even then, he had to go straight from Sky Harbor Airport to the hospital once he landed. He had surgery at 6 a.m. the next day, diagnosed with internal melanoma. He had a tumor 19 centimeters across, attached to his bowel and small intestine. It had spread to multiple areas. They told him he had six months to live.
Steve Sr. wasn't hearing that.
Buoyed by support from his family, and the knowledge Steve Jr. had beaten cancer himself, Steve Sr. got into experimental immunotherapy. He spent 2½ years in the protocol, beating back his disease and blowing past his life expectancy.
"It beat me up," Steve Sr. acknowledged. But he was alive.
He still battles some small remnants, going this week to have a small patch taken off his chest. But he is clean internally. And he showing up to Cardinals' Crucial Catch games, half of a father-son duo that had both fended off cancer.
STEVE JR. WAS IN IRAQ in 2009, watching the Cardinals play in the Super Bowl. He had been lucky enough to be home to watch the Cardinals beat the Eagles two weeks prior in the NFC title game. Eight years into his Cardinals fandom, the loss to the Steelers was tough.
"Unfortunately, the outcome was the outcome," Steve Jr. said. "But I watched it with other guys from Arizona in my platoon because they were also Cardinals fans."
Steve Jr. believes it makes sense to root for the Cardinals, with Tillman having been at ASU, a Cardinal, and then living a similar military path.
"Being a Ranger, Tillman's legacy here, I had close friends killed overseas, and (we're) continuing to be Cardinals fans to honor that legacy and Pat's service," Steve Jr. said, "I think it's important."
Both men say "blessed" when asked about getting to this point. They know not all cancer patients are as fortunate.
"We were the perfect team for this to happen to," Steve Sr. said. "We supported each other. You don't get through this without family."
Steve Jr. became a Tempe police officer after his military service. He became a detective at one point, and has now been assigned to the U.S. Marshals Violent Offender Task Force. Steve Sr. still works for FedEx, although he acknowledged retirement is coming.
"We are lucky," Steve Jr. said. "I felt like because of the hardship I endured, and even getting hurt my senior year of high school, I should've been a state champion, I should've been a scholarship athlete at a D-I school, the perseverance helped me in the military, helped me in Rangers.
"When you call 9-1-1, you don't want an out-of-shape cop coming through that door to help your family. You want someone like me who has seen a lot, who is capable of bringing calm to chaos."
Steve Jr. missed Cardinals games when he was overseas with the military, but he is back to attending them now. Steve Sr. remarkably missed few when battling cancer, but games served as little "vacations" from his situation when he was going through it all, a welcome break.
Sunday against the Lions, with the Cardinals celebrating Crucial Catch, Steve Jr. was honored as a first responder through the Bud Light Best Seats program. At one point, the two were shown to the crowd on the video boards, a moment cancer provided but couldn't take from them.
"We thought it was time to tell our story," Steve Sr. said.
Football will always be part of their life.
