Dan Cnossen Said It All Just By Showing Up To Support Jack Berry In His Most Challenging Moment

Jack Berry received a visitor shortly after he underwent surgery in the fall of 2018 to have his right knee and the cancerous tumor that had grown just above it removed.

Berry had been staying with his family in Wellesley, Massachusetts, as he went through several months of cancer treatment. He was wearing a Boston Bruins hat to cover his bald head when Paralympian Dan Cnossen arrived at their house.

Cnossen, a Nordic skier, lived only 10 minutes away in Natick, Massachusetts. When he came to visit with Berry, he brought with him the gold medal he won only a few months earlier in the biathlon at the Paralympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018.

As a former Navy SEAL who lost his legs in 2009 while serving in Afghanistan, Cnossen wanted to offer a bit of encouragement to Berry, who was age 11 at the time.

“The day after I got home from the hospital, he came and met us and just told me what’s up and showed me his gold medal and talked about Para Nordic skiing,” Berry said. “And so things like that were really good for me to see so early on into my journey, that really anything is possible and not much has changed.”

Berry was 10 years old when he learned after breaking his right leg that he had osteosarcoma, a rare type of bone cancer that tends to affect kids, teenagers and young adults. He’s now 16.

Along the way, Berry has formed a close bond and an unlikely friendship with Cnossen, a seven-time Paralympic medalist. They started off as running partners, and in a remarkable twist, they’re now fellow Nordic skiers who often race at the same competitions.

“He’s a lot taller of course, but yet he still has the same positivity and enthusiasm and inner strength that I saw a few years ago when he was going through (his surgery) — I can’t even imagine how difficult of a time it was for him and his family,” Cnossen said. “They have that strength that is very apparent when you when you meet him. That is still there.”

In late February, Berry competed at a Para Nordic skiing event sanctioned by the FIS in Bozeman, Montana. He was then selected to join other development athletes from across the globe at a training camp in Livigno, Italy, during the first week of April.

“Dan and I are still really good friends,” said Berry, who lives in Missoula, Montana. “Any time I’m on the East Coast, we’ll do something, and he’s at most of the races that I’m at. But I think the biggest thing is just having him there for any advice that I need or questions I have because he’s done it all before.

“He’s also just a pretty incredible human, his mindset, and just he’s really great. So just having him be in that same community and doing the same things is really, really important for just how I’m looking at it.”

Cnossen said he first learned about Berry’s situation through one of his friends from the Navy SEALS. Berry’s father, Cooper, is a firefighter in Missoula, and Cnossen’s friend has a company called O2X, which had worked with Cooper’s fire department on improving its physical and mental training.

Cnossen’s friend asked the Paralympian if he could meet with Berry. Cnossen said he respects his friend so much he would have probably done any favor he asked, but Cnossen had another reason for wanting to meet Berry.

“It goes along with being a Paralympic athlete. It’s almost like a duty. I think you have to engage with the community,” Cnossen said. “And in this case, when I met the family, I just really liked them and instantly bonded with both of them.”

Cooper still has photographs from the first time his son met Cnossen in 2018, shortly after he underwent a surgical procedure known as rotationplasty to treat the cancer near his right knee. Doctors removed Berry’s knee, and his foot and ankle were rotated 180 degrees and then attached to his femur so his ankle now essentially acts as a knee.

In one of the photos, Berry is smiling while lying in bed and holding Cnossen’s gold medal.

“Dan’s message is by example. He just showed up, and it’s obvious his life was turned upside down by his event,” Cooper said, referring to Cnossen’s injuries while serving in Afghanistan. “Just standing there and being in his presence, it’s inspiring. You just feel like here’s this guy who’s been through the ringer, and from the outside perspective, it certainly didn’t slow him down.

“The message you get from Dan, he won’t say it out loud, but it’s you don’t stop. You just find different ways to explore the world and maybe it’s on prosthetic legs or maybe it’s a prone surfboard or whatever for Dan that is.”

Berry and Cnossen have gone on several runs together over the years. When Berry was unable to run while recovering from his cancer treatments, his father would push him in a wheelchair as Cnossen ran alongside them.

“His father is a very good athlete, a firefighter, and we would go on a run. I think it was good for Jack to see me running, too,” Cnossen said. “And I’m telling him, ‘Right now, you’re fairly immobilized and incapacitated, relative, but in a couple of years, you’re going to be more functional than I ever will be because you’re going to retain more body parts than I had. So if I can even do this, just think what you can do.’”

One day a few years later, Berry joined Cnossen for a biathlon training session at Crosscut Mountain Sports Center in Bozeman. They would ski a lap around the course and then come into the shooting range, where Berry would watch Cnossen take part in target practice.

As the training session wore on, Berry started shooting at targets as well. Cnossen said it was “neat” to see the teenager get involved, and Cnossen has since made the ultimate gesture to show his support for Berry.

Cnossen has retired from the biathlon to focus solely on cross-country skiing. Since he no longer needs his rifle for competitions, he decided to give it to Berry.

“I wanted my biathlon rifle to be his and so that was pretty special for me to see that it got passed down to him,” Cnossen said. “So if he chooses to pursue biathlon at a serious level, he will have that rifle, or maybe he decides a different one’s better, in which case he could pass it on to another athlete. But I was happy to see that rifle go to him.”

Alex Abrams has written about Olympic and Paralympic sports for more than 15 years, including as a reporter for major newspapers in Florida, Arkansas and Oklahoma. He is a freelance contributor to USParaNordic.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.