Stephen Garcia Says He Is Cancer-Free, Six Months After Stage 4 Colorectal Cancer
The former South Carolina quarterback, 38, learned in April that the disease had spread to his liver. He had put off seeing a doctor for months.
Stephen Garcia, a former University of South Carolina quarterback, was diagnosed with stage 4 colorectal cancer in late April 2026, at age 38. After six rounds of chemotherapy, radiation and surgery, he wrote on Instagram on November 10, 2026: "We are completely cancer free. Everything has been taken out with negative margins." He said a blood test for tumor DNA came back negative and that more chemotherapy is possible. His first symptoms, beginning in July 2025, were sporadic abdominal pain and a change in bowel habits. He and his wife, Masha, started the Quarterback Your Health Foundation, which funds colorectal cancer screenings in Tampa Bay.
The news reached Stephen Garcia on a Monday night, and he waited until morning to share it. On Tuesday, November 10, still in the hospital while a lung healed from surgery, the former University of South Carolina quarterback posted the update he had been working toward since spring: “We are completely cancer free. Everything has been taken out with negative margins.”
Six and a half months earlier, in late April, doctors had told him he had stage 4 colorectal cancer: a tumor in his colon that had spread to his liver and that, they told him, had likely gone undetected for as long as three to seven years. He was 38, a husband, a father of three and a coach of young quarterbacks in Tampa, where he grew up. “It’s been a hell of a journey,” he said in a video from the hospital, where, FOX Carolina reported, he broke down in tears on hearing his pathology results. “And to go from stage four to, you know, having it all over the place to it could be completely out of my body is just unbelievable.”
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The diagnosis: stage 4 colorectal cancer, late April 2026, at 38; it had spread from his colon to his liver.
The symptoms: sporadic abdominal pain and a change in bowel habits, starting in July 2025. No blood, he has said.
The treatment: six rounds of chemotherapy, pelvic radiation, surgery on his colon and liver on September 22, and a later operation on his lung.
The update: on November 10 he wrote, “We are completely cancer free. Everything has been taken out with negative margins.”
What’s next: more chemotherapy is possible, he said, and he plans to have his bag reversed on December 8.
Sources: his own posts and interviews; the American Cancer Society; the National Cancer Institute. Educational, not medical advice.
The symptoms: Stomach pain, and a bathroom habit his wife noticed
The first signs came in July 2025, and they were easy to explain away. “I had some sporadic stomach pain, you know, (I) was going to the bathroom often, just wasn’t ever fully emptied,” he told TODAY in September. There was no bleeding to alarm him. “I didn’t have any blood, my skin and eyes weren’t yellowing and I didn’t have any back pain,” he told Tampa Bay 28. What he remembers thinking, he told Yahoo Sports, was: “I don’t need to go see a doctor to figure out what’s wrong with me. I’ll just beat this.”
The symptoms stayed through the fall and the winter. It got to the point, he said, where his wife, Masha, was asking, “What are you doing in the bathroom?” She pushed him to get a scan. Imaging found two lesions on his liver; a colonoscopy found the tumor in his colon; a biopsy linked the two. It took Masha “six or seven months,” he said in May, to get him in front of a doctor, “and it was seven months too long. I wish I would have listened to her earlier.”
What he describes matches several items on the American Cancer Society’s list of signs and symptoms of colorectal cancer: a change in bowel habits that lasts for more than a few days; a feeling of needing to have a bowel movement that is not relieved by having one; cramping or belly pain. The list also includes rectal bleeding, blood in the stool, weakness and fatigue, and unintended weight loss. The society adds that colorectal cancer might not cause symptoms right away, and that many of these symptoms can be caused by other conditions, such as an infection, hemorrhoids or irritable bowel syndrome.
The diagnosis: Stage 4 at 38, seven years before routine screening starts
Stage 4 is the name for colorectal cancer that has spread to an area or organ that is not near the colon or rectum, such as the liver or a lung, in the National Cancer Institute’s definition. Garcia was 38. The American Cancer Society recommends that people at average risk start regular screening at 45, and says people at increased or high risk might need to start before then.
He is part of a pattern the society has been tracking. Its report Colorectal Cancer Statistics, 2026, released in March, found incidence rising by 3 percent a year in adults aged 20 to 49 and called colorectal cancer “the number one cause of cancer-related mortality” in adults under 50. Our report on the rise in colorectal cancer across nearly all ages has the longer view.
The diagnosis “was definitely a shock,” he told TODAY, and then it was a problem to be worked. “You know, it’s like, ‘All right, what are we gonna do? What’s the game plan? How are we gonna beat this thing?’”
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The six months: Chemotherapy, radiation and two operations
He announced the diagnosis on May 6, the day he sat for the first round of an aggressive chemotherapy regimen called FOLFIRINOX, “the big gun,” as he put it. “We’re going to kick this thing in the teeth and knock it out,” he told reporters two days later.
The updates that followed were good ones. By late July, after his sixth round, one of the two lesions on his liver could no longer be seen and the other had shrunk by more than half, he told WIS. In August he finished five sessions of pelvic radiation and, FOX 13 Tampa Bay reported, rang the bell. In early September a blood test showed that the tumor DNA in his blood was “basically 99.8% gone,” he told FOX Carolina. Circulating tumor DNA is small pieces of DNA that tumor cells release into the blood, according to the National Cancer Institute.
On September 22 surgeons removed the tumors from his colon and liver. “Surgeon called and said all the cancer is out!!!!” Masha wrote that night, in a post quoted by TODAY, and then added a careful postscript: “Stephen has stage 4 cancer and is not officially cancer free. It’s going to be a long journey with surveillance.” A later operation on his lung produced the result he shared on Tuesday: negative margins and clear lymph nodes, along with a negative result on a blood test that looks for traces of tumor DNA. A margin is the edge of the tissue removed in cancer surgery, and it is called negative when the pathologist finds no cancer cells there, the National Cancer Institute says.
Garcia has been plain that the work is not finished. “Gotta continue to crush this thing and make sure it’s never coming back,” he wrote. He may have more chemotherapy, he said in the hospital video, “just to make sure this thing is done,” and he plans to have his bag reversed on December 8.
The quarterback: Before all this, he beat a No. 1
Football fans knew the name long before April. Garcia grew up in Tampa, played for Steve Spurrier at South Carolina and finished third on the school’s career passing list. His afternoon came on October 9, 2010: 17 completions in 20 attempts, 201 yards and three touchdown passes as the Gamecocks beat top-ranked Alabama, 35-21. “Never before had the Gamecocks beaten a team ranked No. 1,” the university’s own game story said.
When the diagnosis became public, old teammates and old rivals reached out, among them the Clemson coach Dabo Swinney, Yahoo Sports reported. “The fact that fans still care means a lot,” he told TODAY. (Another Southeastern Conference story from this fall: Alex McPherson, the Auburn kicker who beat No. 1 Georgia two years after losing his large intestine.)
The message: Quarterback your health
From the first week, he has had one thing he wants people to take from it. “If you feel even a little bit off, go get checked out,” he said in May. “That’s my main message to get out to everybody.”
He and Masha turned the message into an organization. The Quarterback Your Health Foundation describes itself as “a Tampa Bay foundation fighting colorectal cancer by expanding access to early detection,” and says it funds screenings for uninsured and at-risk people, including those who fall outside standard screening guidelines. The point, he told WIS, is “trying to get people to literally quarterback their health.”
“He is brave. Being this open with his diagnosis, men do it in silence.” Masha Garcia, to TODAY
It has already reached the people closest to him: his brother went for a screening and had two precancerous polyps removed, TODAY reported.
He ended Tuesday’s post with a promise: “Going to continue to try to inspire folks and spread the message.” Our story of Danni Duncan, who ran the New York City Marathon a year after bowel cancer, is a companion to this one.
Where this comes from: Sources
Stephen Garcia’s November 10 update is from his own Instagram post and FOX Carolina’s report on his hospital video. His account of his symptoms and diagnosis is from Yahoo Sports (May 8, 2026), TODAY (updated September 23, 2026), which also quotes Masha Garcia, and Tampa Bay 28; the treatment timeline is from WIS, FOX 13 Tampa Bay and FOX Carolina. The foundation’s description is from its website, and the 2010 game from South Carolina Athletics. Symptoms, screening ages and the 2026 statistics are the American Cancer Society’s; the definitions are the National Cancer Institute’s. The embedded posts are the accounts’ own. Gut Health Times has no commercial relationship with Stephen Garcia or the Quarterback Your Health Foundation. This article describes what the cited sources say and is educational, not medical advice.