Dan Lanning and his wife Sauphia have kept the Sam Day Foundation close to their hearts, and this offseason they’ve kept finding new ways to push that support forward.
The Oregon coach, who has been juggling recruiting, a trip that took seven of his players to Japan for a unique showcase and the buildup to the 2026 season, sat down with Lorna Day, the foundation’s executive director, for a recent interview alongside Sauphia. The conversation, titled “One Day” on the Sam Day Foundation YouTube channel, is the first in a series aimed at showing the foundation’s impact on people fighting cancer, especially children.
Sauphia spoke candidly about what it means to survive cancer. "It's not easy to, you know, be a survivor, but you're also very grateful to still be here," she said.
The foundation was created in memory of Sam Day, who was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma at age 9 and died in August 2016 after a six-year battle with the disease. Since launching in 2018, the group says it has committed more than $2.7 million to research, including recent clinical trials for new drugs that Day said the foundation is working to bring to the Northwest.
Lanning said the issue hits hard because cancer care isn’t the same everywhere. "I think you hit on something that's so important," Lanning said. "You know, anybody that's dealt with cancer all of a sudden you think of something that's so worldwide, but then you realize how the treatment is so regional."
The couple also revisited Sauphia’s own fight with osteosarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer, when Dan was an inside linebackers coach for Memphis. She finished her last treatment in 2017, but in the interview she walked through the lead-up to her diagnosis and the side effects that came with treatment, including losing weight, thinning nails and shedding her hair.
She also described the knee surgery she had during that battle, which Dan called "a knee replacement on steroids." Sauphia said it felt like her knee had been put on her body backwards because of how intense the procedure was.
That experience shaped the way the Lannings view the long road after treatment. They noted that more than 90 percent of patients diagnosed with osteosarcoma have lasting health issues.
"I guess I wish [people] knew, I mean, there's still care needed afterwards," Sauphia said. "Sometimes I feel like they think, 'Okay, you're finished.
Like, you've made it. You're great.'
But there's still a lot to be done and they still need help after."
Dan praised the people who cared for her through it all. "I would brag on the people that administer the work," he said.
"You know, I think the nurses were so unbelievable for Sauphia. But the days of going through that, I mean, the crying, the upset stomach.
I mean, that's just, it's a lot to carry over. And I think if anything, it would be is there a way to find treatments that people can handle and it doesn't do the damage that some of these treatments do."
Their support for the foundation has continued beyond the interview. Day asked them about that commitment, which has included hosting the Sam Day Open at the Eugene Country Club in May. Dan said they were initially hesitant to get involved with foundations because of time demands, but this one was too personal to ignore.
Sauphia said her own experience made the cause impossible to walk away from. "I've been through all the treatments and I went through it when I was 29, so I was a lot older and I mean, stronger than some of these young kids that are going through it and I just can't imagine doing it at such a young age," she said.
"One day I hope there's a world without cancer," Sauphia added.
Lanning’s support has also extended through Cameo. In June, he extended his tenure on the video message platform after raising $50,000 for the foundation. On Tuesday, his Cameo page showed he was 55 percent of the way to a new $100,000 goal.
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