Business as usual for Pitt running back James Conner

Okay, so things aren't exactly normal for Pitt star running back James Conner as he continues to battle his way through chemotherapy treatments from his Hodgkin Lymphoma diagnosis. But in reality, he's doing everything to keep it as normal as possible.

In case you've not yet seen it, here's a video posted by head coach Pat Narduzzi a few days ago of Conner absolutely working his butt off.

#ConnerStrong #24 #H2P pic.twitter.com/mAURBcN2rx

— Pat Narduzzi (@CoachDuzzPittFB) February 13, 2016

It's refreshing to see Conner out there doing drills and obviously working hard. We all know about his work ethic but I have to admit that I was even astonished by this:

Conner participates in about 90-95 percent of the same workouts his teammates do, refusing to let his cancer change his life.

90-95%?

To see Conner out there at all is, of course, encouraging. But to hear he's doing almost the same workload that everyone else is? That's borderline insanity. Narduzzi summed it up pretty well in the ESPN article:

"The doc says most people after chemo lay down and veg on the coach and don’t move," Narduzzi said. "This guy is a different deal and it’s almost brought a new life upon what these kids can do, what people can do, what the normal person can do if they have it in their heart to do it.

Seeing Conner buck the trend like this has to be inspiration for not only his teammates but for even the 'normal', everyday people out there with cancer as well. These are obviously just drills and not full contact practices, but when you consider that many people in his situation just get some well-deserved rest, any activity that he's doing is impressive. Plus, he's not exactly going though the motions in that video posted by Narduzzi.

Great stuff.

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