Logan High teammates share bond through cancer … and a rave

After watching dad fight disease, son
takes it upon self to help friend do same

Myles Knoble was a hockey player. Still is, actually. If he won a golf trophy, he’d take the golfer guy off there and probably put a little hockey guy on it. 

Knoble had to quit playing hockey. He didn’t know why. He just hurt. It sucked, of course. 

Then he found out why. And it sucked more. Knoble was diagnosed with cancer –  Stage 4 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.

“He hadn’t skipped hockey, ever, in like eight years,” Knoble’s best friend, Zak Chaouki said. “He stopped about a month and a half after he was diagnosed.

“That was basically the low point. The family just found out. They didn’t have a treatment plan. All they knew was that Myles had cancer. Myles wasn’t going to school anymore. It was bad. No one got to see him. He didn’t have much social interaction and his family was scared. And so were all of his friends.”

Chaouki was scared. He had seen too much. He, unfortunately, knows a little bit about cancer. His dad, Rachid, had it – and so far, is beating it.

But this was different. This was his Logan High School classmate and hockey teammate. Chaouki wasn’t going to stand idle.

“He was able to come to school a little bit once in awhile,” Chaouki said. “I saw him one day and I was kind of shocked. He had lost all his hair. He was black and blue in places. I was like, ‘Holy crap, this is pretty scary.’

“I’ve seen my dad like that, but seeing my friend like that, he is so young, I mean, this was pretty scary.”

Scared for his friend, Chaouki took it upon himself to make a difference in, not just his friend’s life, but Knoble’s entire family.

“After class, I went up to him,” Chaouki continued, “I said, ‘Myles, if you ever need anything, you can always come to me.’ It was at that point that I knew he wasn’t going to ask for anything, but I definitely wanted to do something for him.”

Knoble was diagnosed in March. He finished chemotherapy last week. And that “something” Chaouki knew he was going to do culminated last Friday.

Chaouki told Knoble he was going to throw him “a little dance,” – a fundraiser to help pay medical bills.

And, like a miracle – or good word of mouth – the dance kept getting bigger and the plans kept expanding.

First, a GoFundMe campaign. Then a chicken-q. And, finally, the little dance turned into a laser-light show, rave hosted at the La Crosse Center.

For an 18-year-old who just graduated from high school, Chaouki may have felt like he was getting in over his head. A fundraiser is one thing, but now he was paying bills, not raising money. 

Then sponsors came in. Kwik Trip. The Coulee Region Chill. The La Crosse Loggers. U-Haul. Coca-Cola. And more and more.

Still, there were bills and there was no guarantee that a rave, of all things, was going to draw.

But, the night before the rave, after Chaouki and company finished selling chicken-q and rave tickets at Moon Tunes in Riverside Park on Thursday, they got a notification from that GoFundMe campaign.

Someone just donated $2,000.

“That was just like an ‘Oh my gosh, we’re way positive and we don’t have to worry about breaking even anymore,’” Chaouki recalled of the night.

He could have started the rave right then and there. Probably did, in fact.

The next day, they sold chicken dinners. A lot of chicken dinners. Sold out, in fact. 

As for the rave, they sold over 500 tickets to that, too. And it was a gigantic success.

Knoble has a sense of humor about him. And nobody could miss him bald head, even in the midst of a rave.

“He had this giant hand print of glow-in-the-dark glue on his head,” Chaouki explained. “You could tell where Myles was the whole time.”

As for the dancing: “He can bust a move,” Chaouki said of his friend. “Let me tell you. That kid can bust a move. He’s better than me.”

There was a long, awkward pause at this juncture, as Chaouki thought about that statement. 

“OK, that’s not saying that much, but he’s better than me,” Chaouki finished.

Joking aside, two incredible things came from Chaouki’s fundraising efforts, and it did, in fact, have to do with Knoble’s dancing – whether it was good or terrible.

“It’s the first time I’ve really seen him, himself, since this has all happened,” Chaouki said. “He loved it. He came over to my house after and he just had this big smile on his face the whole night.”

Needless to say, there wasn’t much sleep that night. They turned in around 4:30 a.m.

“We had to pick up the Center, then we went home, got some pizza and talked to Myles for a couple hours,” Chaouki said. “It was a great night and something that we’ll probably remember for the rest of our lives.”

Something else they’ll remember will happen tonight. For Chaouki and crew, it’ll be the look on the Knobles’ faces. For the Knobles, it’ll be the giant check they’re about to get.

We’re not going to tell you how much yet, as Chaouki is trying to keep that somewhat of a surprise. But, it’s a big one. There may be fainting.