Jack McCaffery, a sophomore guard on the Richmond basketball team and son of Penn men's coach Fran McCaffery, has been diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma and will take an indefinite medical leave from the Spiders. After evaluation by Richmond's medical staff, he traveled home to Philadelphia with his parents and was admitted to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where he has begun treatment.
Richmond Athletics confirmed the diagnosis and leave in a statement posted to richmondspiders.com, saying McCaffery “will remain there and has begun a course of treatment under the care of the doctors and nurses at Penn Medicine.” As reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer, Fran McCaffery said his family was grateful to Richmond's coaching staff and medical team for their prompt response, adding that Jack “is in great hands” with his care directed by what the elder McCaffery called a world-class team.
A Penn Medicine physician overseeing McCaffery's case, Alison Wakoff Loren, said the team is confident in his treatment plan, per the athletic department's statement. “We are confident in Jack's treatment plan and Penn Medicine's team of lymphoma experts,” Wakoff Loren said, according to the same account. She also noted that Hodgkin's lymphoma mainly affects people in their 20s but is a highly curable form of cancer, the release states.
A Butler Transfer Whose Season Ended Early Before
McCaffery arrived at Richmond this year as a transfer from Butler, where according to richmondspiders.com's announcement of his addition to the roster, he averaged 2.8 points and 1.6 rebounds across nine games during the 2025-26 season before an illness cut his season short there as well. The specifics of that earlier illness were not detailed in that release.
A Family Already Familiar With This Fight
This is not the first time cancer has touched the McCaffery household. The Inquirer reports that Fran McCaffery's second-oldest son, Patrick, was diagnosed with thyroid cancer at age 14. According to the V Foundation, Patrick's treatment involved two surgeries rather than chemotherapy, and The Daily Pennsylvanian reports that the mass on his thyroid was removed and he has been in remission ever since. Patrick's cancer was treated through the Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Program at the University of Iowa Stead Family Children's Hospital, per the Inquirer's reporting.
Fran McCaffery was coaching at Iowa at the time, and his family's connection to that cancer program has continued for more than a decade. The University of Iowa Center for Advancement notes that since its inception in 2011, the annual McCaffery fundraiser has raised more than $1.25 million for cancer support at University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics, with the bulk of that support directed toward the Adolescent and Young Adult program. In 2015, McCaffery received the Coaches vs. Cancer Champion Award for that fundraising work, according to The Daily Pennsylvanian. Since taking over at Penn, Fran McCaffery has also contributed to Philadelphia's Coaches vs. Cancer chapter, the Inquirer reports.
What Hodgkin's Lymphoma Typically Looks Like
Nationally, Hodgkin's lymphoma is a cancer that researchers track closely for outcomes by age and stage. The American Cancer Society notes that its published survival statistics are based on people diagnosed between 2015 and 2021, and that federal cancer registries group the disease into localized, regional, and distant stages rather than by numbered stage. The dossier's details on McCaffery's own stage, subtype, or expected treatment timeline have not been made public.
For now, Richmond has not indicated when McCaffery might return to school or to the court. The program's focus, per its own statement, remains on his recovery under Penn Medicine's care.
