LIBERTY, Mo. — Last week, FOX4 Sports told you the story of Liberty North Head Track Coach Ken Peek battling cancer. Thursday morning, he’s in better spirits after surgery this week.

“Even though I’m not there as head coach at the state track meet, physically, I want them to know I’m there with them,” he said. “Learning that I had a brain tumor, my wife and I had a little bit of moment of pity and then we turned the corner and it’s just been invigorating.”

Despite the challenges of not getting much rest and now under orders to rest for six weeks before various radiation and chemo treatments, Peek will have focus on himself while keeping his team positive with this message as they leave for the state championship.

“You guys have the talent and the drive to do this without any extra motivation with your coach being sick. My message as a head coach for 26 years is this is the time of year where you just fight, you scrap, you fight for every place.”

And with that fight he’s showing beating cancer. The community has his back, sharing a tattoo with one of his javelin throwers Matthew Morrison

“It’s the same logo that he put on that shirt, the only thing I did was add a tip of blue that represents Liberty North,” he said.

And taking his mantra of “Grip It and Rip It.”

“She started this movement with the Grip It, Rip IT, T-shirts and I didn’t even know what was going on, I was just trying to survive the day. There’s people around me that care about it so much that they were already trying to help us. It was very touching and I can’t thank them enough.”

So as he fights under plenty of medications, his wife has been by his side keeping things as consistent as possible.

“Date Night, Wednesday night, 8 o’clock, Ted Lasso.”

Listening to the song “Dreams” by Van Halen and making sure to live.

“There’s time’s you waver a little bit, but we’ve just decided that, whatever happens, we’re just going to be positive and live and laugh and love.”