Royston English wasn’t going to be brought down without a fight.

Those who knew the Waltham High graduate weren’t surprised. They knew what type of kid he was growing up in the city and what type of man he became when he returned after college. Those who’d ever seen him play football wouldn’t expect anything less. They saw how he dominated the field as a WHS football star and how he battled for every yard and every score during a stellar career at the University of Maine.

It was no different in the Summer of 2009 when English was diagnosed with lung cancer. He was defiant at first. He hadn’t done anything to deserve the disease – never smoked, never did drugs, did not drink and did not come from a family with a cancer history – so he wasn’t going to let it take him down.